Mechanisms for a remote response to Asian aerosol emissions in boreal winter

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: Wilcox, Laura J., Dunstone, Nick, Lewinschal, Anna, Bollasina, Massimo, Ekman, Annica M. L., Highwood, Eleanor J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2019
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/80726/; https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/80726/9/acp-19-9081-2019.pdf; https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/80726/1/acp-2018-980.pdf

Asian emissions of anthropogenic aerosols have increased rapidly since 1980, with half of the increase since the pre-industrial era occurring in this period. Transient experiments with the HadGEM3-GC2 coupled model were designed to isolate the impact of Asian aerosols on global climate. In boreal winter, it is found that this increase has resulted in local circulation changes, which in turn have driven increases in temperature and decreases in precipitation over China, alongside an intensification of the offshore monsoon flow. Over India, the opposite response is found, with decreasing temperatures and increasing precipitation. The dominant feature of the local circulation changes is an increase in low-level convergence, ascent, and precipitation over the Maritime continent, which forms part of a tropical-Pacific-wide La-Nina-like response. HadGEM3-GC2 also simulates pronounced far-field responses. A decreased meridional temperature gradient in the North Pacific leads to a positive-Pacific-North-American circulation pattern, with associated temperature anomalies over the North Pacific and North America. An anomalous anticyclonic circulation over the North Atlantic, and an anomalous cyclonic circulation over the Mediterranean drive advection of cold air into Europe, causing cooling in this region. Using a steady-state primitive equation model, LUMA, we demonstrate that these far-field midlatitude response arise primarily as a result of Rossby waves generated over China, rather than in the Equatorial Pacific.