Global aerosol change in the last decade: An analysis based on MODIS data

Mao, Kebiao; Ma, Yingying; Xia, Lei; Chen, Wendy Y.; Shen, Xinyi; He, Tai‐Long; Xu, Tongren

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.04.053

Cited by 84 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Current satellite observations reveal a persistence of these regional trends in anthropogenic emissions (Mao et al 2014), and simulations suggest that peak regional aerosol forcing from Asian anthropogenic emissions relative to the preindustrial era may not be reached for several decades (Li et al 2014), indicating that a sensitivity analysis of 1978-2008 CAE forcing will be informative about near-future climate uncertainties. A time series of global CAE forcing relative to the year 1850, constructed using simulations where all parameters were set to their median values, is presented in Fig.…”

Section: Time Periodmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Climatic Importance of Uncertainties in Regional Aerosol–Cloud Radiative Forcings over Recent Decades

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Regional patterns of aerosol radiative forcing are important for understanding climate change on decadal time scales. Uncertainty in aerosol forcing is likely to vary regionally and seasonally because of the short aerosol lifetime and heterogeneous emissions. Here the sensitivity of regional aerosol cloud albedo effect (CAE) forcing to 31 aerosol process parameters and emission fluxes is quantified between 1978 and 2008. The effects of parametric uncertainties on calculations of the balance of incoming and outgoing radiation are found to be spatially and temporally dependent. Regional uncertainty contributions of opposite sign cancel in global-mean forcing calculations, masking the regional importance of some parameters. Parameters that contribute little to uncertainty in Earth's global energy balance during recent decades make significant contributions to regional forcing variance. Aerosol forcing sensitivities are quantified within 11 climatically important regions, where surface temperatures are thought to influence large-scale climate effects. Substantial simulated uncertainty in CAE forcing in the eastern Pacific leaves open the possibility that apparent shifts in the mean ENSO state may result from a forced aerosol signal on multidecadal time scales. A likely negative aerosol CAE forcing in the tropical North Atlantic calls into question the relationship between Northern Hemisphere aerosol emission reductions and CAE forcing of sea surface temperatures in the main Atlantic hurricane development region on decadal time scales. Simulated CAE forcing uncertainty is large in the North Pacific, suggesting that the role of the CAE in altering Pacific tropical storm frequency and intensity is also highly uncertain.

show abstract

Section: Time Periodmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Climatic Importance of Uncertainties in Regional Aerosol–Cloud Radiative Forcings over Recent Decades

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Several studies have examined trends in satellite AOD. Following trends in emissions, over the past decade positive trends in satellite AOD have been observed over Asia and Africa, corresponding to regions experiencing industrial growth (de Meij et al, 2012;Chin et al, 2014;Mao et al, 2014;Mehta et al, 2016), while negative trends in satellite AOD have been observed over North America and Europe, largely due to pollution controls de Meij et al, 2012;Chin et al, 2014;Mehta et al, 2016). Studies such as these demonstrate the information about the evolution of aerosol abundance offered by total column AOD retrievals, but measurements of absorption would complement the scattering information in AOD retrievals by providing independent information on aerosol composition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insight into global trends in aerosol composition from 2005 to 2015 inferred from the OMI Ultraviolet Aerosol Index

Hammer

Martin

et al. 2018

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Observations of aerosol scattering and absorption offer valuable information about aerosol composition. We apply a simulation of the Ultraviolet Aerosol Index (UVAI), a method of detecting aerosol absorption from satellite observations, to interpret UVAI values observed by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) from 2005 to 2015 to understand global trends in aerosol composition. We conduct our simulation using the vector radiative transfer model VLI-DORT with aerosol fields from the global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem. We examine the 2005-2015 trends in individual aerosol species from GEOS-Chem and apply these trends to the UVAI simulation to calculate the change in simulated UVAI due to the trends in individual aerosol species. We find that global trends in the UVAI are largely explained by trends in absorption by mineral dust, absorption by brown carbon, and scattering by secondary inorganic aerosol. Trends in absorption by mineral dust dominate the simulated UVAI trends over North Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and Australia. The UVAI simulation resolves observed negative UVAI trends well over Australia, but underestimates positive UVAI trends over North Africa and Central Asia near the Aral Sea and underestimates negative UVAI trends over East Asia. We find evidence of an increasing dust source from the desiccating Aral Sea that may not be well represented by the current generation of models. Trends in absorption by brown carbon dominate the simulated UVAI trends over biomass burning regions. The UVAI simulation reproduces observed negative trends over central South America and West Africa, but underestimates observed UVAI trends over boreal forests. Trends in scattering by secondary inorganic aerosol dominate the simulated UVAI trends over the eastern United States and eastern India. The UVAI simulation slightly overestimates the observed positive UVAI trends over the eastern United States and underestimates the observed negative UVAI trends over India. Quantitative simulation of the OMI UVAI offers new insight into global trends in aerosol composition.

show abstract

“…The climatological global mean value with present-day emissions is 0.122, which is close to the observations derived from MODIS (e.g. Mao et al, 2014). The influence of the LNO x emissions can be analysed with the help of the ceiling map in Fig.…”

Section: Aerosol Optical Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 66%

Chemistry–climate interactions of aerosol nitrate from lightning

Tost¹

2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Lightning represents one of the dominant emission sources for NO x in the troposphere. The direct release of oxidised nitrogen in the upper troposphere does not only affect ozone formation, but also chemical and microphysical properties of aerosol particles in this region. This study investigates the direct impact of LNO x emissions on uppertropospheric nitrate using a global chemistry climate model. The simulation results show a substantial influence of the lightning emissions on the mixing ratios of nitrate aerosol in the upper troposphere of more than 50 %. In addition to the impact on nitrate, lightning substantially affects the oxidising capacity of the atmosphere with substantial implications for gas-phase sulfate formation and new particle formation in the upper troposphere. In conjunction with the condensation of nitrates, substantial differences in the aerosol size distribution occur in the upper troposphere as a consequence of lightning. This has implications for the extinction properties of the aerosol particles and for the cloud optical properties. While the extinction is generally slightly enhanced due to the LNO x emissions, the response of the clouds is ambiguous due to compensating effects in both liquid and ice clouds. Resulting shortwave flux perturbations are of ∼ −100 mW m −2 as determined from several sensitivity scenarios, but an uncertainty range of almost 50 % has to be defined due to the large internal variability of the system and the uncertainties in the multitude of involved processes. Despite the clear statistical significance of the influence of lightning on the nitrate concentrations, the robustness of the findings gradually decreases towards the determination of the radiative flux perturbations.

show abstract

Global aerosol change in the last decade: An analysis based on MODIS data

Cited by 84 publications

References 30 publications

The Climatic Importance of Uncertainties in Regional Aerosol–Cloud Radiative Forcings over Recent Decades

The Climatic Importance of Uncertainties in Regional Aerosol–Cloud Radiative Forcings over Recent Decades

Insight into global trends in aerosol composition from 2005 to 2015 inferred from the OMI Ultraviolet Aerosol Index

Chemistry–climate interactions of aerosol nitrate from lightning

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About