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Tropospheric ozone, lightning, and climate change
- Source :
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 102:10667-10672
- Publication Year :
- 1997
- Publisher :
- American Geophysical Union (AGU), 1997.
-
Abstract
- Tropospheric O 3 is an important greenhouse gas. Lightning is a major source of NO x , and thus of tropospheric O 3 It has recently been suggested that due to an apparent strong correlation between lightning strike rates and surface temperatures, tropospheric O 3 may significantly increase if the climate warms, resulting in a substantial positive climate forcing. This paper attempts to quantify the extent of this forcing and the associated positive climate feedback. Simulations incorporating a tropospheric 03-surface temperature parameterization are performed of the last glacial maximum and of a climate in which greenhouse gas concentrations have been doubled. The O 3 parameterization is based on results from a two-dimensional chemical model. The simulations are obtained using a one-dimensional radiative-convective model, in which CO 2 , CH 4 , tropospheric O 3 , and in the case of the paleoclimate simulation the surface albedo, are varied both independently and in combination. In the paleoclimate case, the tropospheric O 3 feedback has roughly two thirds of the effect on surface temperatures as the change in tropospheric O 3 due to industrialization alone. During climate warming, the effect on surface temperatures is about 60% of that due to a doubling of CH 4 . The results indicate that a surface temperature-lightning-O 3 feedback, currently absent in general circulation models, could significantly affect anthropogenic climate change. Improved modeling and observations are required to confirm this.
- Subjects :
- Runaway climate change
Atmospheric Science
Soil Science
Climate change
Aquatic Science
Oceanography
Atmospheric sciences
chemistry.chemical_compound
Geochemistry and Petrology
Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)
Tropospheric ozone
Greenhouse effect
Earth-Surface Processes
Water Science and Technology
Ecology
Global warming
Paleontology
Forestry
Radiative forcing
Albedo
Geophysics
chemistry
Space and Planetary Science
Climatology
Greenhouse gas
Environmental science
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 01480227
- Volume :
- 102
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........35014cece88d7a8dc54dcded35e2bd81