Journal ArticleDOI
A satellite view of aerosols in the climate system
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TLDR
Increases in aerosol concentration and changes in their composition, driven by industrialization and an expanding population, may adversely affect the Earth's climate and water supply.Abstract:
Anthropogenic aerosols are intricately linked to the climate system and to the hydrologic cycle. The net effect of aerosols is to cool the climate system by reflecting sunlight. Depending on their composition, aerosols can also absorb sunlight in the atmosphere, further cooling the surface but warming the atmosphere in the process. These effects of aerosols on the temperature profile, along with the role of aerosols as cloud condensation nuclei, impact the hydrologic cycle, through changes in cloud cover, cloud properties and precipitation. Unravelling these feedbacks is particularly difficult because aerosols take a multitude of shapes and forms, ranging from desert dust to urban pollution, and because aerosol concentrations vary strongly over time and space. To accurately study aerosol distribution and composition therefore requires continuous observations from satellites, networks of ground-based instruments and dedicated field experiments. Increases in aerosol concentration and changes in their composition, driven by industrialization and an expanding population, may adversely affect the Earth's climate and water supply.read more
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Book Chapter
Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing
Piers M. Forster,Venkatachalam Ramaswamy,Paulo Artaxo,Terje Koren Berntsen,Richard Betts,David W. Fahey,Jim Haywood,Judith Lean,David C. Lowe,Gunnar Myhre,John Nganga,Ronald G. Prinn,Graciela B. Raga,Michael Schulz,Rob van Dorland,Greg Bodeker,Oliver Boucher,William D. Collins,T.J. Conway,Edward J. Dlugokencky,James W. Elkins,David Etheridge,P. Foukal,Paul J. Fraser,Marvyn Geller,Fortunat Joos,Charles D. Keeling,Stefan Kinne,K. Lassey,Ulrike Lohmann,Andrew C. Manning,S. A. Montzka,David E. Oram,K. O'Shaughnessy,S. Piper,Gian-Kasper Plattner,Michael Ponater,Navin Ramankutty,G. Reid,David Rind,Karen H. Rosenlof,Robert Sausen,D. Schwarzkopf,S.K. Solanki,Garry Stenchikov,N. Stuber,Toshihiko Takemura,Christiane Textor,R. Wang,Ray F. Weiss,T. Whorf +50 more
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Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions
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Journal ArticleDOI
The MODIS Aerosol Algorithm, Products and Validation
Lorraine A. Remer,Yoram J. Kaufman,Didier Tanré,Shana Mattoo,D. A. Chu,J. V. Martins,Rong-Rong Li,Charles Ichoku,Robert C. Levy,Richard G. Kleidman,Thomas F. Eck,Eric Vermote,Brent N. Holben +12 more
TL;DR: In this article, the spectral optical thickness and effective radius of the aerosol over the ocean were validated by comparison with two years of Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) data.
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The Changing Character of Precipitation
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Light Absorption by Carbonaceous Particles: An Investigative Review
Tami C. Bond,Robert Bergström +1 more
TL;DR: The optical properties of light-absorbing, carbonaceous substance often called "soot", "black carbon", or "carbon black" have been the subject of some debate as discussed by the authors.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Aerosols, cloud microphysics, and fractional cloudiness.
TL;DR: Increases in aerosol concentrations over the oceans may increase the amount of low-level cloudiness through a reduction in drizzle—a process that regulates the liquid-water content and the energetics of shallow marine clouds—to contribute to a cooling of the earth's surface.
Journal ArticleDOI
Aerosols, climate, and the hydrological cycle
TL;DR: Human activities are releasing tiny particles (aerosols) into the atmosphere that enhance scattering and absorption of solar radiation, which can lead to a weaker hydrological cycle, which connects directly to availability and quality of fresh water, a major environmental issue of the 21st century.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate Forcing by Anthropogenic Aerosols
Robert J. Charlson,Stephen E. Schwartz,J. M. Hales,Robert D. Cess,James A. Coakley,James Hansen,D. J. Hofmann +6 more
TL;DR: The aerosol forcing has likely offset global greenhouse warming to a substantial degree, however, differences in geographical and seasonal distributions of these forcings preclude any simple compensation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Environmental characterization of global sources of atmospheric soil dust identified with the nimbus 7 total ozone mapping spectrometer (toms) absorbing aerosol product
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) sensor on the Nimbus 7 satellite to map the global distribution of major atmospheric dust sources with the goal of identifying common environmental characteristics.
Journal ArticleDOI
Variability of Absorption and Optical Properties of Key Aerosol Types Observed in Worldwide Locations
Oleg Dubovik,Brent N. Holben,Thomas F. Eck,Thomas F. Eck,Alexander Smirnov,Yoram J. Kaufman,Michael D. King,Didier Tanré,Ilya Slutsker +8 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the AERONET network of ground-based radiometers were used to remotely sense the aerosol absorption and other optical properties in several key locations, and the results showed robust differentiation in both the magnitude and spectral dependence of the absorption, a property driving aerosol climate forcing.
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