Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific assessment
Tami C. Bond,Sarah J. Doherty,David W. Fahey,Piers M. Forster,Terje Koren Berntsen,Benjamin DeAngelo,Mark Flanner,Steven J. Ghan,Bernd Kärcher,Dorothy Koch,Stefan Kinne,Yutaka Kondo,Patricia K. Quinn,Marcus C. Sarofim,Martin G. Schultz,Michael Schulz,Chandra Venkataraman,Hua Zhang,Shiqiu Zhang,Nicolas Bellouin,Sarath K. Guttikunda,Philip K. Hopke,Mark Z. Jacobson,Johannes W. Kaiser,Zbigniew Klimont,Ulrike Lohmann,Joshua P. Schwarz,Drew Shindell,Trude Storelvmo,Stephen G. Warren,Charles S. Zender +30 more
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TLDR
In this paper, the authors provided an assessment of black-carbon climate forcing that is comprehensive in its inclusion of all known and relevant processes and that is quantitative in providing best estimates and uncertainties of the main forcing terms: direct solar absorption; influence on liquid, mixed phase, and ice clouds; and deposition on snow and ice.Abstract:
Black carbon aerosol plays a unique and important role in Earth's climate system. Black carbon is a type of carbonaceous material with a unique combination of physical properties. This assessment provides an evaluation of black-carbon climate forcing that is comprehensive in its inclusion of all known and relevant processes and that is quantitative in providing best estimates and uncertainties of the main forcing terms: direct solar absorption; influence on liquid, mixed phase, and ice clouds; and deposition on snow and ice. These effects are calculated with climate models, but when possible, they are evaluated with both microphysical measurements and field observations. Predominant sources are combustion related, namely, fossil fuels for transportation, solid fuels for industrial and residential uses, and open burning of biomass. Total global emissions of black carbon using bottom-up inventory methods are 7500 Gg yr−1 in the year 2000 with an uncertainty range of 2000 to 29000. However, global atmospheric absorption attributable to black carbon is too low in many models and should be increased by a factor of almost 3. After this scaling, the best estimate for the industrial-era (1750 to 2005) direct radiative forcing of atmospheric black carbon is +0.71 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of (+0.08, +1.27) W m−2. Total direct forcing by all black carbon sources, without subtracting the preindustrial background, is estimated as +0.88 (+0.17, +1.48) W m−2. Direct radiative forcing alone does not capture important rapid adjustment mechanisms. A framework is described and used for quantifying climate forcings, including rapid adjustments. The best estimate of industrial-era climate forcing of black carbon through all forcing mechanisms, including clouds and cryosphere forcing, is +1.1 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of +0.17 to +2.1 W m−2. Thus, there is a very high probability that black carbon emissions, independent of co-emitted species, have a positive forcing and warm the climate. We estimate that black carbon, with a total climate forcing of +1.1 W m−2, is the second most important human emission in terms of its climate forcing in the present-day atmosphere; only carbon dioxide is estimated to have a greater forcing. Sources that emit black carbon also emit other short-lived species that may either cool or warm climate. Climate forcings from co-emitted species are estimated and used in the framework described herein. When the principal effects of short-lived co-emissions, including cooling agents such as sulfur dioxide, are included in net forcing, energy-related sources (fossil fuel and biofuel) have an industrial-era climate forcing of +0.22 (−0.50 to +1.08) W m−2 during the first year after emission. For a few of these sources, such as diesel engines and possibly residential biofuels, warming is strong enough that eliminating all short-lived emissions from these sources would reduce net climate forcing (i.e., produce cooling). When open burning emissions, which emit high levels of organic matter, are included in the total, the best estimate of net industrial-era climate forcing by all short-lived species from black-carbon-rich sources becomes slightly negative (−0.06 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of −1.45 to +1.29 W m−2). The uncertainties in net climate forcing from black-carbon-rich sources are substantial, largely due to lack of knowledge about cloud interactions with both black carbon and co-emitted organic carbon. In prioritizing potential black-carbon mitigation actions, non-science factors, such as technical feasibility, costs, policy design, and implementation feasibility play important roles. The major sources of black carbon are presently in different stages with regard to the feasibility for near-term mitigation. This assessment, by evaluating the large number and complexity of the associated physical and radiative processes in black-carbon climate forcing, sets a baseline from which to improve future climate forcing estimates.read more
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Nuclear Winter Responses to Nuclear War Between the United States and Russia in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model Version 4 and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors simulate the climate response using the Community Earth System Model-Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model version 4 (WACCM4), run at 2° horizontal resolution with 66 layers from the surface to 140 km, with full stratospheric chemistry and with aerosols from the Community Aerosol and Radiation Model for Atmospheres allowing for particle growth.
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Climate response to externally mixed black carbon as a function of altitude
TL;DR: In this article, the vertical dependence of the efficiency with which BC exerts radiative forcing (RF) through the direct aerosol effect has been extensively studied using a global circulation model.
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Drivers of precipitation change: An energetic understanding
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Optical characteristics and source apportionment of brown carbon in winter PM2.5 over Yulin in Northern China
Yali Lei,Yali Lei,Zhenxing Shen,Zhenxing Shen,Qiyuan Wang,Tian Zhang,Junji Cao,Jian Sun,Qian Zhang,Linqing Wang,Hongmei Xu,Jie Tian,Jiamin Wu +12 more
TL;DR: The authors in this article evaluated the light-absorption characteristics of brown carbon (BrC) both in water and in methanol extracts and quantified the contribution of coal combustion to PM 2.5.
Journal ArticleDOI
Black carbon aerosol characterization in a remote area of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, western China.
Qiyuan Wang,Joshua P. Schwarz,Junji Cao,Junji Cao,Ru-Shan Gao,David W. Fahey,Tafeng Hu,Ru-Jin Huang,Yongming Han,Zhenxing Shen +9 more
TL;DR: Understanding of the characteristics of rBC aerosol in the less studied Tibetan Plateau region is improved and relative reduction in the secondary mode during a snow event supports recent work that suggested size dependent removal of r BC by precipitation.
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