Short lived climate forcers from current shipping and petroleum activities in the Arctic

Abstract

Abstract. Atmospheric concentration changes and the resulting radiative forcing (RF) due to emissions from shipping and petroleum activity in the Arctic have been studied, using three-dimensional chemistry transport (OsloCTM2) and radiative transfer models. The present work focuses on short-lived climate forcers, based on a coherent dataset of present day emissions from petroleum and shipping activities in the Arctic region. We find that the net forcing effect of Arctic shipping emissions of short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) is negative, while the net effect from Arctic petroleum emissions of SLCFs is positive. The negative RF from Arctic shipping arises mainly from direct aerosol – and first indirect effects of sulphate. Positive RF from Arctic petroleum is mainly due to black carbon in air and deposited on snow and ice. Normalized forcing (RF per change in atmospheric burden) and global warming potentials (GWP) suggest that Arctic conditions (high solar angle, high surface albedo, summer season with midnight sun and polar night during winter) lead to different sensitivity to emissions here compared to lower latitudes.