Sensitivity Study of Atmospheric DMS Simulated in WRF‐Chem to Various Oceanic DMS Fields Over the South West Pacific

Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is believed to play a significant role in the Earth's climate system as a precursor to new particle formation and cloud condensation nuclei in the pristine marine atmosphere. In this study, the authors have tested the sensitivity of atmospheric DMS concentrations simulated with the WRF-Chem regional model to four existing seawater DMS climatologies together with seawater DMS inferred from a recently developed relationship from nanophytoplankton satellite retrievals. Comparisons with in situ observations collected in the Southwest Pacific and Southern Oceans reveal that the new parameterisation overall better reproduces the spatial distribution of marine DMS than the climatologies in this region. They also show that simulated atmospheric DMS levels are sensitive to the oceanic DMS, but the atmospheric DMS concentration variability is mostly dependent on the atmospheric dynamics.

Reference: Salignat, R., Rose, C., Banson, S., et al. (2025). Sensitivity study of atmospheric DMS simulated in WRF-Chem to various oceanic DMS fields over the South West Pacific. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 130, e2024JD042271. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD042271