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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Aerosol single scattering albedo dependence on biomass combustion efficiency: Laboratory and field studies
Shang Liu,Allison C. Aiken,Caleb Arata,Manvendra K. Dubey,Chelsea E. Stockwell,Robert J. Yokelson,Elizabeth A. Stone,Thilina Jayarathne,Allen L. Robinson,Paul J. DeMott,Sonia M. Kreidenweis +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, single scattering albedo (ω) of fresh biomass burning (BB) aerosols produced from 92 controlled laboratory combustion experiments of 20 different woods and grasses was analyzed to determine the factors that control the variability in ω.
Journal ArticleDOI
Characterization of carbonaceous aerosols over the urban tropical location and a new approach to evaluate their climatic importance
TL;DR: The results obtained from year long (2012-13) observations conducted at a tropical urban location, Pune in southwestern India on organic and Elemental Carbon as well as Black Carbon; using the Sunset OCEC Analyzer and Aethalometer, respectively.
Journal ArticleDOI
Black carbon emissions in gasoline exhaust and a reduction alternative with a gasoline particulate filter.
TL;DR: The reduction in ambient temperature had significant impacts on BC mass and solid particle number emissions, but larger impacts were observed on the PFI vehicles than the GDI vehicles.
Journal ArticleDOI
Impact of delay in reducing carbon dioxide emissions
TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that peak-committed warming is increasing at the same rate as cumulative CO2 emissions, about 2% per year, much faster than observed warming, independent of the climate response.
Journal ArticleDOI
WRF-Chem simulations of aerosols and anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing in East Asia
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive evaluation of the WRF-Chem for modeling aerosols and anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing (RF, including direct, semi-direct and indirect forcing) over East Asia.
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