Aerosol Sulfate Loading and Shortwave Direct Radiative Forcing over the North Atlantic Ocean

• Main Author: Nemesure Benkovitz And
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.36.1859; http://www.arm.gov/docs/documents/technical/conf_9703/nemes-97.pdf

Introduction Shortwave radiative forcing of climate by anthropogenic sulfate aerosols is estimated to be equal in magnitude but opposite in sign to that of greenhouse warming, with a global annual average value of approximately-1 W m uncertain to -2 at least a factor of two. Contribution estimates to this forcing by the direct effect are-0.4 W m . It is therefore necessary to -2 accurately and efficiently represent this forcing in climate models, specifically including spatial and temporal variability. Here we explore a method to expedite the process for determining this forcing. The method utilizes an approach where the forcing is computed precisely at several discrete radii (r) and then integrated over an arbitrary aerosol size distribution. Additionally, the forcing is calculated at several values of relative humidity (RH), solar zenith angle (SZA), and aerosol optical thickness (J). The parameters can be interpolated to pr