Distinct surface response to black carbon aerosols

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: T. Tang, D. Shindell, Y. Zhang, A. Voulgarakis, J.-F. Lamarque, G. Myhre, G. Faluvegi, B. H. Samset, T. Andrews, D. Olivié, T. Takemura, X. Lee
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2021
• Subjects: Physics; QC1-999; Chemistry; QD1-999; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13797-2021; https://doaj.org/article/c5b73fc187a3474cb7f21a6f7a3ad1cd

For the radiative impact of individual climate forcings, most previous studies focused on the global mean values at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), and less attention has been paid to surface processes, especially for black carbon (BC) aerosols. In this study, the surface radiative responses to five different forcing agents were analyzed by using idealized model simulations. Our analyses reveal that for greenhouse gases, solar irradiance, and scattering aerosols, the surface temperature changes are mainly dictated by the changes of surface radiative heating, but for BC, surface energy redistribution between different components plays a more crucial role. Globally, when a unit BC forcing is imposed at TOA, the net shortwave radiation at the surface decreases by <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">5.87</mn><mo>±</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">0.67</mn></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="64pt" height="10pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="ceddc505c45ef5b5f6c3122544bef0be"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="acp-21-13797-2021-ie00001.svg" width="64pt" height="10pt" src="acp-21-13797-2021-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg> W m −2 (W m −2 ) −1 (averaged over global land without Antarctica), which is partially offset by increased downward longwave radiation ( 2.32±0.38 W m −2 (W m −2 ) −1 from the warmer atmosphere, causing a net decrease in the incoming downward surface radiation of <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M9" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">3.56</mn><mo>±</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">0.60</mn></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="64pt" height="10pt" ...