Radiative Effects of Residential Sector Emissions in China: Sensitivity to Uncertainty in Black Carbon Emissions

Archer‐Nicholls, Scott; Lowe, Douglas; He, Cenlin; Kumar, Rajesh; Xiao, Qian; Liu, Yang; Carter, E.; Baumgartner, Jill; Wiedinmyer, Christine

doi:10.1029/2018jd030120

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…A previous study by Archer-Nicholls et al (2019), which used the Maxwell-Garnett mixing-state assumption (i.e., BC spheres are randomly distributed within the homogenous particle composed of the more-scattering aerosol components), estimated that emissions from residential coal have a positive DRE (0.79 W m -2 and ranging from 1.38 to -0.01 W m -2 over Eastern China, due changing the BC:OA ratio), which would lead to a negative DRE from removing these emissions, the opposite of what we estimate. The estimate reported by Archer-Nicholls et al (2019) is larger in magnitude, likely because they excluded residential combustion (i.e., both biomass and coal use) across all of China, rather than just in Beijing or Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. The difference in sign could be due to differences in aerosol absorption.…”

Section: Estimated Aerosol Direct Effect Of the Residential Coal Banmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…These studies estimate that between 20 and 65% of ambient PM2.5 in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei comes from residential coal heating, depending on emissions and atmospheric conditions (Liu et al, 2016;Xue et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2017;Meng et al, 2019). Archer-Nicholls et al (2016) and Archer-Nicholls et al, (2019) estimated the health and radiative effects, respectively, of all residential biomass and coal use across China. Shen et al (2019) investigated the health and climate impacts of transitions in residential energy across China between 1992 and 2012.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimated Aerosol Health and Radiative Effects of the Residential Coal Ban in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region of China

Bilsback

Baumgartner

Cheeseman

et al. 2020

Aerosol Air Qual. Res.

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Particle-phase air pollution is a leading risk factor for premature death globally and impacts climate by scattering or absorbing radiation and changing cloud properties. Within the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of China, where there are severe air quality problems, several municipalities have begun implementing a coal-to-electricity program that bans residential coal and provides subsidies for electricity and electric-powered heat pumps. We used GEOS-Chem to evaluate two complete residential coal-to-electricity transitions-a Beijing-off scenario and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-off scenario-each relative to a base case. We estimate that within China, the ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) reductions in the Beijing-off scenario could lead to 1,900 (95% CI: 1,200-2,700) premature deaths avoided annually, while the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-off scenario could lead to 13,700 (95% CI: 8,900-19,600) premature deaths avoided annually. Additionally, we estimate that the residential-coal-ban scenarios will result in a positive top-of-the-atmosphere aerosol direct radiative effect (DRE) (model domain average: Beijing-off: 0.023 W m -2 ; Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-off: 0.30 W m -2 ) and a negligible cloud-albedo aerosol indirect effect (AIE) (Beijing-off: 0.0001 W m -2 ; Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-off: 0.0027 W m -2 ). To evaluate the uncertainty of the radiative effects, we calculated the DRE under four black-carbon mixing-state assumptions and both the DRE and AIE assuming three different black-carbon-to-organic-aerosol (BC:OA) ratios for residential-coal emissions. Although the magnitude of our radiative forcing estimates varied across sensitivity cases, the domain average remained positive. When only considering the aerosol-related effects of the aforementioned coal-ban scenarios, we predict substantial health benefits, but do not anticipate a climate "co-benefit", because removing aerosol emissions leads to a warming tendency. However, if the coal-to-electricity program results in less net greenhouse gas emissions due to the replacement heaters, the policy may be able to achieve health and climate "co-benefits".

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Section: Estimated Aerosol Direct Effect Of the Residential Coal Banmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimated Aerosol Health and Radiative Effects of the Residential Coal Ban in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region of China

Bilsback

Baumgartner

Cheeseman

et al. 2020

Aerosol Air Qual. Res.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We performed regional model simulations with the "online coupled" air quality model Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry model (WRF-Chem V3.5.1; Grell et al, 2005). WRF-Chem enables more detailed investigation of aerosol-radiation interaction over specific regions at higher horizontal resolution compared with global models, and it has been broadly used for investigating aerosol radiative forcing in previous studies (e.g., Archer-Nicholls et al, 2019;Fast et al, 2006;Saide et al, 2012;Gao et al, 2018;Yao et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2015). To investigate the impact of redistribution effect on PMSD and climate effect of nitrate, the fully dynamic aerosol module MOSAIC (Zaveri et al, 2008) was utilized with eight discrete size bins (39-78, 78-156, 156-312, 312-625, 625-1250 nm, 1.25-2.5, 2.5-5, 5-10 µm; see also Fig.…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural sea-salt emissions moderate the climate forcing of anthropogenic nitrate

Chen

Cheng

et al. 2020

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Natural sea-salt aerosols, when interacting with anthropogenic emissions, can enhance the formation of particulate nitrate. This enhancement has been suggested to increase the direct radiative forcing of nitrate, called the “mass-enhancement effect”. Through a size-resolved dynamic mass transfer modeling approach, we show that interactions with sea salt shift the nitrate from sub- to super-micron-sized particles (“redistribution effect”), and hence this lowers its efficiency for light extinction and reduces its lifetime. The redistribution effect overwhelms the mass-enhancement effect and significantly moderates nitrate cooling; e.g., the nitrate-associated aerosol optical depth can be reduced by 10 %–20 % over European polluted regions during a typical sea-salt event, in contrast to an increase by ∼10 % when only accounting for the mass-enhancement effect. Global model simulations indicate significant redistribution over coastal and offshore regions worldwide. Our study suggests a strong buffering by natural sea-salt aerosols that reduces the climate forcing of anthropogenic nitrate, which had been expected to dominate the aerosol cooling by the end of the century. Comprehensive considerations of this redistribution effect foster better understandings of climate change and nitrogen deposition.

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“…We performed regional model simulations with the 'online coupled' air quality model Weather Research and Forecasting/Chemistry model (WRF-Chem V3.5.1, Grell et al, 2005). WRF-Chem enables more 105 detailed investigation of aerosol-radiation interaction over specific regions at higher horizontal resolution compared with global models, and has been broadly used for investigating aerosol radiative forcing in previous studies (e.g., Archer-Nicholls et al, 2019;Fast et al, 2006;Saide et al, 2012;Gao et al, 2018;Yao et al, 2017;Huang et al, 2015). To investigate the impact of 're-distribution effect' on PMSD and climate effect of nitrate, the fully dynamic aerosol module MOSAIC (Zaveri et al, 2008) was utilized with eight 110 discrete size bins (39-78 nm, 78-156 nm, 156-312 nm, 312-625 nm, 625-1250 nm, 1.25-2.5 µm, 2.5-5 µm, 5-10 µm; see also Fig.…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural sea-salt emissions moderate the climate forcing of anthropogenic nitrate

Chen¹,

Cheng²,

Ma³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Natural sea-salt aerosols, when interacting with anthropogenic emissions, can enhance the formation of particulate nitrate. This enhancement has been suggested to increase the direct radiative forcing of nitrate, called 'mass-enhancement effect'. Through a size-resolved dynamic mass transfer modelling approach, we show that interactions with sea-salt shift the nitrate from sub-to super-micron sized particles ('re-distribution effect'), and hence lower its efficiency for light extinction and reduce its lifetime. The re-25 distribution effect overwhelms the mass-enhancement effect and significantly moderates nitrate cooling; e.g., the nitrate associated aerosol optical depth can be reduced by 10-20% over European polluted regions during a typical sea-salt event, in contrast to an increase by ~10% when only accounting for the massenhancement effect. Global model simulations indicate significant re-distribution over coastal and offshore regions world-wide. Our study suggests a strong buffering by natural sea-salt aerosols that reduces the 30 climate forcing of anthropogenic nitrate, which had been expected to dominate the aerosol cooling by the end of the century. Comprehensive considerations of this re-distribution effect foster better understandings of climate change and nitrogen deposition.

show abstract

Radiative Effects of Residential Sector Emissions in China: Sensitivity to Uncertainty in Black Carbon Emissions

Cited by 7 publications

References 95 publications

Estimated Aerosol Health and Radiative Effects of the Residential Coal Ban in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region of China

Estimated Aerosol Health and Radiative Effects of the Residential Coal Ban in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region of China

Natural sea-salt emissions moderate the climate forcing of anthropogenic nitrate

Natural sea-salt emissions moderate the climate forcing of anthropogenic nitrate

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