Present and future aerosol impacts on Arctic climate change in the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model
-
Published:2021-07-09
Issue:13
Volume:21
Page:10413-10438
-
ISSN:1680-7324
-
Container-title:Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
-
language:en
-
Short-container-title:Atmos. Chem. Phys.
Author:
Im UlasORCID, Tsigaridis KostasORCID, Faluvegi Gregory, Langen Peter L.ORCID, French Joshua P., Mahmood RashedORCID, Thomas Manu A., von Salzen KnutORCID, Thomas Daniel C., Whaley Cynthia H.ORCID, Klimont Zbigniew, Skov HenrikORCID, Brandt Jørgen
Abstract
Abstract. The Arctic is warming 2 to 3 times faster than the global average, partly due to changes in short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) including aerosols. In order to study the effects of atmospheric aerosols in this warming, recent past (1990–2014) and future (2015–2050) simulations have been carried out using the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model to study the aerosol burdens and their radiative and climate impacts over the Arctic (>60∘ N), using anthropogenic emissions from the Eclipse V6b and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) databases, while global annual mean greenhouse gas concentrations were prescribed and kept fixed in all simulations. Results showed that the simulations have underestimated observed surface aerosol levels, in particular black carbon (BC) and sulfate (SO42-), by more than 50 %, with the smallest biases calculated for the atmosphere-only simulations, where winds are nudged to reanalysis data. CMIP6 simulations performed slightly better in reproducing the observed surface aerosol concentrations and climate parameters, compared to the Eclipse simulations. In addition, simulations where atmosphere and ocean are fully coupled had slightly smaller biases in aerosol levels compared to atmosphere-only simulations without nudging. Arctic BC, organic aerosol (OA), and SO42- burdens decrease significantly in all simulations by 10 %–60 % following the reductions of 7 %–78 % in emission projections, with the Eclipse ensemble showing larger reductions in Arctic aerosol burdens compared to the CMIP6 ensemble. For the 2030–2050 period, the Eclipse ensemble simulated a radiative forcing due to aerosol–radiation interactions (RFARI) of -0.39±0.01 W m−2, which is −0.08 W m−2 larger than the 1990–2010 mean forcing (−0.32 W m−2), of which -0.24±0.01 W m−2 was attributed to the anthropogenic aerosols. The CMIP6 ensemble simulated a RFARI of −0.35 to −0.40 W m−2 for the same period, which is −0.01 to −0.06 W m−2 larger than the 1990–2010 mean forcing of −0.35 W m−2. The scenarios with little to no mitigation (worst-case scenarios) led to very small changes in the RFARI, while scenarios with medium to large emission mitigations led to increases in the negative RFARI, mainly due to the decrease in the positive BC forcing and the decrease in the negative SO42- forcing. The anthropogenic aerosols accounted for −0.24 to −0.26 W m−2 of the net RFARI in 2030–2050 period, in Eclipse and CMIP6 ensembles, respectively. Finally, all simulations showed an increase in the Arctic surface air temperatures throughout the simulation period. By 2050, surface air temperatures are projected to increase by 2.4 to 2.6 ∘C in the Eclipse ensemble and 1.9 to 2.6 ∘C in the CMIP6 ensemble, compared to the 1990–2010 mean. Overall, results show that even the scenarios with largest emission reductions leads to similar impact on the future Arctic surface air temperatures and sea-ice extent compared to scenarios with smaller emission reductions, implying reductions of greenhouse emissions are still necessary to mitigate climate change.
Funder
Aarhus Universitet Nordisk Ministerråd Miljøstyrelsen
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Subject
Atmospheric Science
Reference106 articles.
1. Abbatt, J. P. D., Leaitch, W. R., Aliabadi, A. A., Bertram, A. K., Blanchet, J.-P., Boivin-Rioux, A., Bozem, H., Burkart, J., Chang, R. Y. W., Charette, J., Chaubey, J. P., Christensen, R. J., Cirisan, A., Collins, D. B., Croft, B., Dionne, J., Evans, G. J., Fletcher, C. G., Galí, M., Ghahremaninezhad, R., Girard, E., Gong, W., Gosselin, M., Gourdal, M., Hanna, S. J., Hayashida, H., Herber, A. B., Hesaraki, S., Hoor, P., Huang, L., Hussherr, R., Irish, V. E., Keita, S. A., Kodros, J. K., Köllner, F., Kolonjari, F., Kunkel, D., Ladino, L. A., Law, K., Levasseur, M., Libois, Q., Liggio, J., Lizotte, M., Macdonald, K. M., Mahmood, R., Martin, R. V., Mason, R. H., Miller, L. A., Moravek, A., Mortenson, E., Mungall, E. L., Murphy, J. G., Namazi, M., Norman, A.-L., O'Neill, N. T., Pierce, J. R., Russell, L. M., Schneider, J., Schulz, H., Sharma, S., Si, M., Staebler, R. M., Steiner, N. S., Thomas, J. L., von Salzen, K., Wentzell, J. J. B., Willis, M. D., Wentworth, G. R., Xu, J.-W., and Yakobi-Hancock, J. D.: Overview paper: New insights into aerosol and climate in the Arctic, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 2527–2560, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-2527-2019, 2019. 2. Aleinov, I.: GISS Model E Source Code Snapshots
available at:
https://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/,
last access: 7 July 2021. 3. AMAP 2015 Assessment: Black carbon and ozone as Arctic climate forcers. Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), Oslo, Norway, vii, 116 pp., 2015. 4. AMAP 2021 Assessment: Arctic climate, air quality, and health impacts from short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), in press, 2021. 5. Amann, M., Bertok, I., Borken-Kleefeld, J., Cofala, J., Heyes, C., Höglund-Isaksson, L., Klimont, Z., Nguyen, B., Posch, M., Rafaj, P., Sandler, R., Schöpp, W., Wagner, F., and Winiwarter, W.: Cost-effective control of air quality and greenhouse gases in Europe: Modeling and policy applications, Environ. Modell. Softw., 26, 1489–1501, 2011.
Cited by
12 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
|
|