Emissions of anthropogenic aerosols and gas precursors in China have increased substantially over the past three decades with the rapid economic growth. These increases might have serious consequences for the regional and global climate change, air quality degradation and health problem. However, current generation global aerosol-climate models show the large biases in simulating aerosol distribution and magnitude in China, highlighting the difficulties and complexities of aerosol modeling in this region. In this study, using the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) with the Modal Aerosol Module (MAM) we investigate several possible factors behind the large aerosol biases in China, including (1) anthropogenic aerosol and precursor gas emissions, and (2) representation of important aerosol components (e.g., nitrate) and processes (e.g., secondary formation). In addition, East Asia is subject to influence of dust aerosols from Asian Deserts. We evaluate CAM5 simulated vertical profiles of dust extinction in East Asia and dust long-range transport across the Pacific by comparing with the CALIOP satellite observations. Model biases and implications for aerosol-cloud-climate interactions will be discussed.
