NASA GEOS Composition Forecast Modeling System GEOS-CF v1.0: Stratospheric composition

The NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) provides recent estimates and 5-day forecasts of atmospheric composition to the public in near-real time. To do this, the GEOS Earth system model is coupled with the GEOS-Chem tropospheric-stratospheric unified chemistry extension (UCX) to represent composition from the surface to the top of the GEOS atmosphere (0.01 hPa). The GEOS-CF system is described, including updates made to the GEOS-Chem UCX mechanism within GEOS-CF for improved representation of stratospheric chemistry. Comparisons are made against balloon, lidar, and satellite observations for stratospheric composition, including measurements of ozone (O-3) and important nitrogen and chlorine species related to stratospheric O-3 recovery. The GEOS-CF nudges the stratospheric O-3 toward the GEOS Forward Processing (GEOS FP) assimilated O-3 product; as a result the stratospheric O-3 in the GEOS-CF historical estimate agrees well with observations. During abnormal dynamical and chemical environments such as the 2020 polar vortexes, the GEOS-CF O-3 forecasts are more realistic than GEOS FP O-3 forecasts because of the inclusion of the complex GEOS-Chem UCX stratospheric chemistry. Overall, the spatial patterns of the GEOS-CF simulated concentrations of stratospheric composition agree well with satellite observations. However, there are notable biases-such as low NOx and HNO3 in the polar regions and generally low HCl throughout the stratosphere-and future improvements to the chemistry mechanism and emissions are discussed. GEOS-CF is a new tool for the research community and instrument teams observing trace gases in the stratosphere and troposphere, providing near-real-time three-dimensional gridded information on atmospheric composition.