Implementation of the ORACLE (v1.0) organic aerosol composition and evolution module into the EC-Earth3-AerChem model

Abstract. Simulating the composition and evolution of organic aerosol (OA) in Earth System Models (ESMs) presents significant challenges due to the high computational demands of detailed chemical mechanisms. The computationally efficient ORACLE module employs the volatility basis set framework and can simulate secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from a range of precursors, including volatile (VOCs), intermediate-volatility (IVOCs), semi-volatile (SVOCs), and low-volatility organic compounds (LVOCs). In this study, a lite configuration of the ORACLE v1.0 module (ORACLE-lite) is implemented into the TM5-MP global chemical transport model (CTM), which represents the chemistry-transport component of the EC-Earth3-AerChem ESM. SOA formation from anthropogenic VOCs is neglected to reduce the number of surrogate species and further improve computational efficiency. For the standalone TM5-MP simulation, the global annual mean surface total OA concentration using ORACLE-lite is approximately 1.1 µg m−3, representing a 25 % increase compared to the previous version of the model. The annual atmospheric OA burden also increases by 50 %, reaching 3.67 Tg. Corresponding predictions from EC-Earth3-AerChem are slightly higher, with a surface total OA concentration of 1.16 µg m−3 and an atmospheric burden of 3.83 Tg, representing increases of 30 % and 60 %, respectively, compared to the previous version of the model. Comparison of monthly measured PM2.5 OA concentrations from Europe and the US with the corresponding predictions shows that the models bias is reduced by approximately half in the standalone TM5-MP simulation and by a factor of three in EC-Earth3-AerChem when ORACLE-lite is implemented. These enhancements enable more accurate and computationally feasible assessments of the climate impacts of individual organic aerosol components in future ESM studies.