Climate processes

Abstract:

Atmospheric black carbon (BC) absorbs solar radiation, and exacerbates global warming through exerting positive radiative forcing (RF). However, the contribution of BC to ongoing changes in global climate is under debate. Anthropogenic BC emissions, and the resulting distribution of BC concentration, are highly uncertain. In particular, long-range transport and processes affecting BC atmospheric lifetime are poorly understood. Here we discuss whether recent assessments may have overestimated present-day BC radiative forcing in remote regions. We compare vertical profiles of BC concentration from four recent aircraft measurement campaigns to simulations by 13 aerosol models participating in the AeroCom Phase II intercomparison. An atmospheric lifetime of BC of less than 5 days is shown to be essential for reproducing observations in remote ocean regions, in line with other recent studies. Adjusting model results to measurements in remote regions, and at high altitudes, leads to a 25% reduction in AeroCom Phase II median direct BC forcing, from fossil fuel and biofuel burning, over the industrial era. The sensitivity of modelled forcing to BC vertical profile and lifetime highlights an urgent need for further flight campaigns, close to sources and in remote regions, to provide improved quantification of BC effects for use in climate policy.

Abstract:

We present a detailed budget of the changes in atmospheric aerosol mass and numbers due to various processes: emission, nucleation, coagulation, H₂SO₄ condensation and in-cloud production, ageing and deposition. The budget is created from monthly-averaged tracer tendencies calculated by the global aerosol model ECHAM5.5-HAM2 and allows us to investigate process contributions at various length- and time-scales. As a result, we show in unprecedented detail what processes drive the evolution of aerosol. In particular, we show that the processes that affect aerosol masses are quite different from those affecting aerosol numbers. Condensation of H₂SO₄ gas onto pre-existing particles is an important process, dominating the growth of small particles in the nucleation mode to the Aitken mode and the ageing of hydrophobic matter. Together with in-cloud production of H₂SO₄, it significantly contributes to (and often dominates) the mass burden (and hence composition) of the hydrophilic Aitken and accumulation mode particles. Particle growth itself is the leading source of number densities in the hydrophilic Aitken and accumulation modes, with their hydrophobic counterparts contributing (even locally) relatively little. As expected, the coarse mode is dominated by primary emissions and mostly decoupled from the smaller modes. Our analysis also suggests that coagulation serves mainly as a loss process for number densities and that, relative to other processes, it is a rather unimportant contributor to composition changes of aerosol. The analysis is extended with sensitivity studies where the impact of a lower model resolution or pre-industrial emissions is shown to be small. We discuss the use of the current budget for model simplification, prioritisation of model improvements, identification of potential structural model errors and model evaluation against observations.