Abstract. Aerosol variations and trends over different land and ocean regions from 1980 to 2009 are analyzed with the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) model and observations from multiple satellite sensors and available ground-based networks. Excluding time periods with large volcanic influence, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and surface concentration over polluted land regions generally vary with anthropogenic emissions, but the magnitude of this association can be dampened by the presence of natural aerosols, especially dust. Over the 30-year period in this study, the largest reduction in aerosol levels occurs over Europe, where AOD has decreased by 40–60% on average and surface sulfate concentrations have declined by a factor of up to 3–4. In contrast, East Asia and South Asia show AOD increases, but the relatively high level of dust aerosols in Asia reduces the correlation between AOD and pollutant emission trends. Over major dust source regions, model analysis indicates that the change of dust emissions over the Sahara and Sahel has been predominantly driven by the change of near-surface wind speed, but over Central Asia it has been largely influenced by the change of the surface wetness. The decreasing dust trend in the North African dust outflow region of the tropical North Atlantic and the receptor sites of Barbados and Miami is closely associated with an increase of the sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic. This temperature increase may drive the decrease of the wind velocity over North Africa, which reduces the dust emission, and the increase of precipitation over the tropical North Atlantic, which enhances dust removal during transport. Despite significant trends over some major continental source regions, the model-calculated global annual average AOD shows little change over land and ocean in the past three decades, because opposite trends in different land regions cancel each other out in the global average, and changes over large open oceans are negligible. This highlights the necessity for regional-scale assessment of aerosols and their climate impacts, as global-scale average values can obscure important regional changes.

Abstract. As a result of increasing attention paid to aerosols in climate studies, numerous global satellite aerosol products have been generated. Aerosol parameters and underlining physical processes are now incorporated in many general circulation models (GCMs) in order to account for their direct and indirect effects on the earth's climate, through their interactions with the energy and water cycles. There exists, however, an outstanding problem that these satellite products have substantial discrepancies, that must be lowered substantially for narrowing the range of the estimates of aerosol's climate effects. In this paper, numerous key uncertain factors in the retrieval of aerosol optical depth (AOD) are articulated for some widely used and relatively long satellite aerosol products including the AVHRR, TOMS, MODIS, MISR, and SeaWiFS. We systematically review the algorithms developed for these sensors in terms of four key elements that influence the quality of passive satellite aerosol retrieval: calibration, cloud screening, classification of aerosol types, and surface effects. To gain further insights into these uncertain factors, the NOAA AVHRR data are employed to conduct various tests, which help estimate the ranges of uncertainties incurred by each of the factors. At the end, recommendations are made to cope with these issues and to produce a consistent and unified aerosol database of high quality for both environment monitoring and climate studies.

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Land plants have developed a cuticle preventing uncontrolled water loss. Here we report that an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) subfamily G (ABCG) full transporter is required for leaf water conservation in both wild barley and rice. A spontaneous mutation, eibi1.b , in wild barley has a low capacity to retain leaf water, a phenotype associated with reduced cutin deposition and a thin cuticle. Map-based cloning revealed that Eibi1 encodes an HvABCG31 full transporter. The gene was highly expressed in the elongation zone of a growing leaf (the site of cutin synthesis), and its gene product also was localized in developing, but not in mature tissue. A de novo wild barley mutant named “ eibi1.c ,” along with two transposon insertion lines of rice mutated in the ortholog of HvABCG31 also were unable to restrict water loss from detached leaves. HvABCG31 is hypothesized to function as a transporter involved in cutin formation. Homologs of HvABCG31 were found in green algae, moss, and lycopods, indicating that this full transporter is highly conserved in the evolution of land plants.