Greg Carmichael

TL;DR: The second most important contribution to anthropogenic climate warming, after carbon dioxide emissions, was made by black carbon emissions as mentioned in this paper, which is an efficient absorbing agent of solar irradiation that is preferentially emitted in the tropics and can form atmospheric brown clouds in mixture with other aerosols.

TL;DR: In this article, a new inventory of air pollutant emissions in Asia in the year 2006 is developed to support the Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment-Phase B (INTEX-B) funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Abstract: [1] An inventory of air pollutant emissions in Asia in the year 2000 is developed to support atmospheric modeling and analysis of observations taken during the TRACE-P experiment funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the ACE-Asia experiment funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Emissions are estimated for all major anthropogenic sources, including biomass burning, in 64 regions of Asia. We estimate total Asian emissions as follows: 34.3 Tg SO2, 26.8 Tg NOx, 9870 Tg CO2, 279 Tg CO, 107 Tg CH4, 52.2 Tg NMVOC, 2.54 Tg black carbon (BC), 10.4 Tg organic carbon (OC), and 27.5 Tg NH3. In addition, NMVOC are speciated into 19 subcategories according to functional groups and reactivity. Thus we are able to identify the major source regions and types for many of the significant gaseous and particle emissions that influence pollutant concentrations in the vicinity of the TRACE-P and ACE-Asia field measurements. Emissions in China dominate the signature of pollutant concentrations in this region, so special emphasis has been placed on the development of emission estimates for China. China's emissions are determined to be as follows: 20.4 Tg SO2, 11.4 Tg NOx, 3820 Tg CO2, 116 Tg CO, 38.4 Tg CH4, 17.4 Tg NMVOC, 1.05 Tg BC, 3.4 Tg OC, and 13.6 Tg NH3. Emissions are gridded at a variety of spatial resolutions from 1° × 1° to 30 s × 30 s, using the exact locations of large point sources and surrogate GIS distributions of urban and rural population, road networks, landcover, ship lanes, etc. The gridded emission estimates have been used as inputs to atmospheric simulation models and have proven to be generally robust in comparison with field observations, though there is reason to think that emissions of CO and possibly BC may be underestimated. Monthly emission estimates for China are developed for each species to aid TRACE-P and ACE-Asia data interpretation. During the observation period of March/April, emissions are roughly at their average values (one twelfth of annual). Uncertainties in the emission estimates, measured as 95% confidence intervals, range from a low of ±16% for SO2 to a high of ±450% for OC.

TL;DR: The International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Program (IGAC) has conducted a series of Aerosol Characterization Experiments (ACE) that integrate in situ measurements, satellite observations, and models to reduce the uncertainty in calculations of the climate forcing due to aerosol particles as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: In this article, a survey of national, regional, and international publications on biomass burning is conducted to yield consensus estimates of 'typical' (i.e., non-year-specific) estimates of open burning (excluding biofuels).