PNNL

Abstract

Although the global average surface temperature has increased by about 0.6°C during the last century (IPCC, 2001), some regions such as East Asia, Eastern North America, and Western Europe have cooled rather than warmed during the past decades (Jones, 1988; Qian and Giorgi, 2000). Coherent changes at the regional scale may reflect responses to different climate forcings that need to be understood in order to predict the future net climate response at the global and regional scales under different emission scenarios. Atmospheric aerosols play an important role in global climate change (IPCC 2001). They perturb the earth’s radiative budget directly by scattering and absorbing solar and long wave radiation, and indirectly by changing cloud reflectivity, lifetime, and precipitation efficiency via their role as cloud condensation nuclei. Because aerosols have much shorter lifetime (days to weeks) compared to most greenhouse gases, they tend to concentrate near their emission sources and distribute very unevenly both in time and space. This non-uniform distribution of aerosols, in conjunction with the greenhouse effect, may lead to differential net heating in some areas and net cooling in others (Penner et al. 1994). Sulfate aerosols come mainly from the oxidation of sulfur dioxide (SO2) emitted from fossil fuel burning. Black carbon aerosols are directly emitted during incomplete combustion of biomass, coal, and diesel derived sources. Due to the different optical properties, sulfate and black carbon affect climate in different ways. Because of the massive emissions of sulfur and black carbon that accompany the rapid economic expansions in East Asia, understanding the effects of aerosols on climate is particularly important scientifically and politically in order to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies.