Abstract. Gas-phase chemistry and subsequent gas-to-particle conversion processes such as new particle formation, condensation, and thermodynamic partitioning have large impacts on air quality, climate, and public health through influencing the amounts and distributions of gaseous precursors and secondary aerosols. Their roles in global air quality and climate are examined in this work using the Community Earth System Model version 1.0.5 (CESM1.0.5) with the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.1 (CAM5.1) (referred to as CESM1.0.5/CAM5.1). CAM5.1 includes a simple chemistry that is coupled with a 7-mode prognostic Modal Aerosol Model (MAM7). MAM7 includes classical homogenous nucleation (binary and ternary) and activation nucleation (empirical first-order power law) parameterizations, and a highly-simplified inorganic aerosol thermodynamics treatment that only simulates sulfate (SO42−) and ammonium (NH4+). In this work, a new gas-phase chemistry mechanism based on the 2005 Carbon Bond Mechanism for Global Extension (CB05_GE) and several advanced inorganic aerosol treatments for condensation of volatile species, ion-mediated nucleation (IMN), and explicit inorganic aerosol thermodynamics have been incorporated into CESM/CAM5.1-MAM7. Comparing to the simple gas-phase chemistry, CB05_GE can predict many more gaseous species, and improve model performance for PM2.5, PM10, PM2.5 components, and some PM gaseous precursors such as SO2 and NH3 in several regions, as well as aerosol optical depth (AOD) and cloud properties (e.g., cloud fraction (CF), cloud droplet number concentration (CDNC), and shortwave cloud forcing (SWCF)) on globe. The modified condensation and aqueous-phase chemistry further improves the predictions of additional variables such as HNO3, NO2, and O3 in some regions, and new particle formation rate (J) and AOD over globe. IMN can improve the predictions of secondary PM2.5 components, PM2.5, and PM10 over Europe, as well as AOD and CDNC over globe. The explicit inorganic aerosol thermodynamics using ISORROPIA II improves the predictions of all major PM2.5 components and their gaseous precursors in some regions, as well as near-surface temperature and specific humidity, precipitation, downwelling shortwave radiation, SWCF, and cloud condensation nuclei at a supersaturation of 0.5% over globe. With all the modified and new treatments, the improved model predicts that on a global average, SWCF decreases by 2.9 W m−2, reducing the overprediction of SWCF from 7.9% to 0.9%. Uncertainties in emissions can explain largely the inaccurate predictions of precursor gases (e.g., SO2, NH3, and NO) and primary aerosols (e.g., black carbon and primary organic matter). Additional factors leading to discrepancies between model predictions and observations include uncertainties in model treatments such as dust emissions, secondary organic aerosol formation, multiple-phase chemistry, cloud microphysics, aerosol-cloud interaction, and dry and wet deposition.;
