Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap
Recent thinning of glaciers over the Himalayas (sometimes referred to as the third polar region) have raised concern on future water supplies since these glaciers supply water to large river systems that support millions of people inhabiting the surrounding areas. Black carbon (BC) aerosols, release...
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_17240 2023-09-05T13:20:09+02:00 Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap Menon, S. (author) Koch, D. (author) Beig, G. (author) Sahu, S. (author) Fasullo, John (author) Orlikowski, D. (author) 2010-05-18 application/pdf http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-000-948 https://doi.org/10.5194/acpd-9-26593-2009 en eng Copernicus Publications Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-000-948 doi:10.5194/acpd-9-26593-2009 ark:/85065/d7251kg5 Copyright Author(s) 2010. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Text article 2010 ftncar https://doi.org/10.5194/acpd-9-26593-2009 2023-08-14T18:42:38Z Recent thinning of glaciers over the Himalayas (sometimes referred to as the third polar region) have raised concern on future water supplies since these glaciers supply water to large river systems that support millions of people inhabiting the surrounding areas. Black carbon (BC) aerosols, released from incomplete combustion, have been increasingly implicated as causing large changes in the hydrology and radiative forcing over Asia and its deposition on snow is thought to increase snow melt. In India BC from biofuel combustion is highly prevalent and compared to other regions, BC aerosol amounts are high. Here, we quantify the impact of BC aerosols on snow cover and precipitation from 1990 to 2010 over the Indian subcontinental region using two different BC emission inventories. New estimates indicate that Indian BC from coal and biofuel are large and transport is expected to expand rapidly in coming years. We show that over the Himalayas, from 1990 to 2000, simulated snow/ice cover decreases by ~0.9% due to aerosols. The contribution of the enhanced Indian BC to this decline is ~30%, similar to that simulated for 2000 to 2010. Spatial patterns of modeled changes in snow cover and precipitation are similar to observations (from 1990 to 2000), and are mainly obtained with the newer BC estimates. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): DE-AC02-05CH11231 Article in Journal/Newspaper Ice cap Polar Ice Cap OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Indian |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
Recent thinning of glaciers over the Himalayas (sometimes referred to as the third polar region) have raised concern on future water supplies since these glaciers supply water to large river systems that support millions of people inhabiting the surrounding areas. Black carbon (BC) aerosols, released from incomplete combustion, have been increasingly implicated as causing large changes in the hydrology and radiative forcing over Asia and its deposition on snow is thought to increase snow melt. In India BC from biofuel combustion is highly prevalent and compared to other regions, BC aerosol amounts are high. Here, we quantify the impact of BC aerosols on snow cover and precipitation from 1990 to 2010 over the Indian subcontinental region using two different BC emission inventories. New estimates indicate that Indian BC from coal and biofuel are large and transport is expected to expand rapidly in coming years. We show that over the Himalayas, from 1990 to 2000, simulated snow/ice cover decreases by ~0.9% due to aerosols. The contribution of the enhanced Indian BC to this decline is ~30%, similar to that simulated for 2000 to 2010. Spatial patterns of modeled changes in snow cover and precipitation are similar to observations (from 1990 to 2000), and are mainly obtained with the newer BC estimates. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): DE-AC02-05CH11231 |
author2 |
Menon, S. (author) Koch, D. (author) Beig, G. (author) Sahu, S. (author) Fasullo, John (author) Orlikowski, D. (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap |
spellingShingle |
Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap |
title_short |
Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap |
title_full |
Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap |
title_fullStr |
Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap |
title_full_unstemmed |
Black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap |
title_sort |
black carbon aerosols and the third polar ice cap |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-000-948 https://doi.org/10.5194/acpd-9-26593-2009 |
geographic |
Indian |
geographic_facet |
Indian |
genre |
Ice cap Polar Ice Cap |
genre_facet |
Ice cap Polar Ice Cap |
op_relation |
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/OSGC-000-000-000-948 doi:10.5194/acpd-9-26593-2009 ark:/85065/d7251kg5 |
op_rights |
Copyright Author(s) 2010. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acpd-9-26593-2009 |
_version_ |
1776200873843621888 |