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Effective radiative forcing from emissions of reactive gases and aerosols - a multi-model comparison

Authors :
Gillian D. Thornhill
William J. Collins
Ryan J. Kramer
Dirk Olivié
Ragnhild B. Skeie
Fiona O’Connor
Nathan Luke Abraham
Ramiro Checa-Garcia
Susanne E. Bauer
Makoto Deushi
Louisa K. Emmons
Piers M. Forster
Larry W. Horowitz
Ben Johnson
James Keeble
Jean-Francois Lamarque
Martine Michou
Michael J. Mills
Jane P. Mulcahy
Gunnar Myhre
Pierre Nabat
Vaishali Naik
Naga Oshima
Michael Schulz
Christopher J. Smith
Toshihiko Takemura
Simone Tilmes
Tongwen Wu
Guang Zeng
Jie Zhang
Source :
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 21(2)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
United States: NASA Center for Aerospace Information (CASI), 2021.

Abstract

This paper quantifies the pre-industrial (1850) to present-day (2014) effective radiative forcing (ERF) of anthropogenic emissions of NOX, volatile organic compounds (VOCs; including CO), SO2, NH3, black carbon, organic carbon, and concentrations of methane, N2O and ozone-depleting halocarbons, using CMIP6 models. Concentration and emission changes of reactive species can cause multiple changes in the composition of radiatively active species: tropospheric ozone, stratospheric ozone, stratospheric water vapour, secondary inorganic and organic aerosol, and methane. Where possible we break down the ERFs from each emitted species into the contributions from the composition changes. The ERFs are calculated for each of the models that participated in the AerChemMIP experiments as part of the CMIP6 project, where the relevant model output was available. The 1850 to 2014 multi-model mean ERFs (± standard deviations) are −1.03 ± 0.37 W/sq.m for SO2 emissions, −0.25 ± 0.09 W/sq.m for organic carbon (OC), 0.15 ± 0.17 W/sq.m for black carbon (BC) and −0.07 ± 0.01 W/sq.m for NH3. For the combined aerosols (in the piClim-aer experiment) it is −1.01 ± 0.25 W/sq.m. The multi-model means for the reactive well-mixed greenhouse gases (including any effects on ozone and aerosol chemistry) are 0.67 ± 0.17 W/sq.m for methane (CH4), 0.26 ± 0.07 W/sq.m for nitrous oxide (N2O) and 0.12 ± 0.2 W/sq.m for ozone-depleting halocarbons (HC). Emissions of the ozone precursors nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds and both together (O3) lead to ERFs of 0.14 ± 0.13, 0.09 ± 0.14 and 0.20 ± 0.07 W/sq.m respectively. The differences in ERFs calculated for the different models reflect differences in the complexity of their aerosol and chemistry schemes, especially in the case of methane where tropospheric chemistry captures increased forcing from ozone production.

Subjects

Subjects :
Meteorology And Climatology

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
16807324 and 16807316
Volume :
21
Issue :
2
Database :
NASA Technical Reports
Journal :
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Notes :
NNH15CO48B
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsnas.20205009837
Document Type :
Report
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-853-2021