Prognostic equations for the rain mass mixing ratio and the rain drop number concentration are introduced into the large-scale cloud microphysics parameterization of the ECHAM5 general circulation model (ECHAM5-RAIN). For this a rain flux from one level to the next with the appropriate fall speed is introduced. This maintains rain water in 5 the atmosphere to be available for the next time step...

The impact of climate change on local discharge variability is investigated in the Suir River Catchment which is located in the south-east of Ireland. In this paper, the Rossby Centre Regional Atmospheric Model (RCA) is driven by different global climate data sets. For the past climate (1961–2000), the model is driven by ECMWF reanalysis (ERA-40) data as well as by the output of the general cir...

Surface temperature, precipitation, specific humidity and wind anomalies associated with the warm and cold phases of ENSO simulated by WRF and HadRM are examined for the present and future decades. WRF is driven by ECHAM5 and CCSM3, respectively, and HadRM is driven by HadCM3. For the current decades, the ECHAM5-WRF, CCSM3-WRF and HadRM simulations are broadly consistent with the observed warm-...

The double-moment cloud microphysics scheme from ECHAM4 that predicts both the mass mixing ratios and number concentrations of cloud droplets and ice crystals has been coupled to the size-resolved aerosol scheme ECHAM5HAM. ECHAM5-HAM predicts the aerosol mass, number concentrations and mixing state. The simulated liquid, ice and total water content and the cloud droplet and ice crystal number c...

Aerosols affect the climate system by changing cloud characteristics in many ways. They act as cloud condensation and ice nuclei and may have an influence on the hydrological cycle. Here we investigate aerosol effects on convective clouds by extending the double-moment cloud microphysics scheme developed for stratiform clouds, which is coupled to the HAM double-moment aerosol scheme, to convect...

Reply to Referee #4: General comments: The Referee suggests a comparison of the ECHAM5-MESSy simulations using the FUBRad scheme with other GCM or CCM simulations. This is however beyond the scope of this paper. A radiation code intercomparison is going to be performed within the CCMVal activity. FUBRad will participate in this intercomparison. The Referee is right when stating that other GCMs/...

Tropical cyclones have been investigated in a T159 version of the MPI ECHAM5 climate model using a novel technique to diagnose the evolution of the three-dimensional vorticity structure of tropical cyclones, including their full life cycle from weak initial vortices to their possible extra-tropical transition. Results have been compared with re-analyses [the European Centre for Medium-Range Wea...

The new Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) describes atmospheric chemistry and meteorological processes in a modular framework, following strict coding standards. It has been coupled to the ECHAM5 general circulation model, which has been slightly modified for this purpose. A 90-layer model setup up to 0.01 hPa was used at spectral T42 resolution to simulate the lower and middle atmosphere. ...

Increased Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) load due to anthropogenic activity might lead to non-precipitating clouds because the cloud drops become smaller (for a constant liquid water content) and, therefore, less efficient in rain formation (aerosol indirect effect). Adding giant CCN (GCCN) into such a cloud can initiate precipitation (namely, drizzle) and, therefore, might counteract the aero...