Origins of a relatively tight lower bound on anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing from Bayesian analysis of historical observations

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-51
Author(s):  
Anna Lea Albright ◽  
Cristian Proistosescu ◽  
Peter Huybers
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bound ◽  
Climate Sensitivity ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Credible Interval ◽  
Ocean Heat Uptake ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Joint Inference ◽  
Aerosol Forcing ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

AbstractA variety of empirical estimates have been published for the lower bounds on aerosol radiative forcing, clustered around -1.0 Wm−2 or -2.0 Wm−2. The reasons for obtaining such different constraints are not well understood. In this study, we explore bounds on aerosol radiative forcing using a Bayesian model of aerosol forcing and Earth’s multi-timescale temperature response to radiative forcing. We first demonstrate the ability of a simple aerosol model to emulate aerosol radiative forcing simulated by ten general circulation models. A joint inference of climate sensitivity and effective aerosol forcing from historical surface temperatures is then made over 1850–2019. We obtain a maximum likelihood estimate of aerosol radiative forcing of -0.85 Wm−2 [5-95% credible interval -1.3 to -0.50 Wm−2] for 2010–2019 relative to 1750 and an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3.4°C [5-95% credible interval 1.8 to 6.1°C]. The wide range of climate sensitivity reflects difficulty in empirically constraining long-term responses using historical temperatures, as noted elsewhere. A relatively tight bound on aerosol forcing is nonetheless obtained from the structure of temperature and aerosol precursor emissions and, particularly, from the rapid growth in emissions between 1950–1980. Obtaining a fifth-percentile lower bound on aerosol forcing around -2.0 Wm−2 requires prescribing internal climate variance that is a factor of five larger than the CMIP6 mean and assuming large, correlated errors in global temperature observations. Ocean heat uptake observations may further constrain aerosol radiative forcing but require a better understanding of the relationship between time-variable radiative feedbacks and radiative forcing.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Lower Bound on Aerosol Radiative Forcing

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 4794-4819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjorn Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bound ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Time History ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Natural State ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Aerosol Forcing ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

Abstract Based on research showing that in the case of a strong aerosol forcing, this forcing establishes itself early in the historical record, a simple model is constructed to explore the implications of a strongly negative aerosol forcing on the early (pre-1950) part of the instrumental record. This model, which contains terms representing both aerosol–radiation and aerosol–cloud interactions, well represents the known time history of aerosol radiative forcing as well as the effect of the natural state on the strength of aerosol forcing. Model parameters, randomly drawn to represent uncertainty in understanding, demonstrate that a forcing more negative than −1.0 W m−2 is implausible, as it implies that none of the approximately 0.3-K temperature rise between 1850 and 1950 can be attributed to Northern Hemisphere forcing. The individual terms of the model are interpreted in light of comprehensive modeling, constraints from observations, and physical understanding to provide further support for the less negative (−1.0 W m−2) lower bound. These findings suggest that aerosol radiative forcing is less negative and more certain than is commonly believed.

scholarly journals Reply to “Comments on ‘Rethinking the Lower Bound on Aerosol Radiative Forcing’”

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (22) ◽  
pp. 9413-9416
Author(s):  
Bjorn Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bound ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Poor Understanding ◽  
Aerosol Cloud Interactions ◽  
Lines Of Evidence ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

This reply addresses a comment questioning one of the lines of evidence I used in a 2015 study (S15) to argue for a less negative aerosol radiative forcing. The comment raises four points of criticism. Two of these have been raised and addressed elsewhere; here I additionally show that even if they have merit the S15 lower bound remains substantially (0.5 W m–2) less negative than that given in the AR5. Regarding the two other points of criticism, one appears to be based on a poor understanding of the nature of S15’s argument; the other rests on speculation as to the nature of the uncertainty in historical SO2 estimates. In the spirit of finding possible flaws with the top-down constraints from S15, I instead hypothesize that an interesting—albeit unlikely—way S15 could be wrong is by inappropriately discounting the contribution of biomass burning to radiative forcing through aerosol–cloud interactions. This hypothesis is interesting as it opens the door for a role for the anthropogenic (biomass) aerosol in causing the Little Ice Age and again raises the specter of greater warming from ongoing reductions in SO2 emissions.

scholarly journals Method to measure the size-resolved real part of aerosol refractive index using differential mobility analyzer in tandem with single-particle soot photometer

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 3541-3550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gang Zhao ◽  
Weilun Zhao ◽  
Chunsheng Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Refractive Index ◽  
Single Particle ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Differential Mobility ◽  
Ambient Aerosols ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Abstract Knowledge ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Effects ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

Abstract. Knowledge on the refractive index of ambient aerosols can help reduce the uncertainties in estimating aerosol radiative forcing. A new method is proposed to retrieve the size-resolved real part of the refractive index (RRI). The main principle of deriving the RRI is measuring the scattering intensity by a single-particle soot photometer (SP2) of size-selected aerosols. This method is validated by a series of calibration experiments using the components of the known RRI. The retrieved size-resolved RRI covers a wide range, from 200 to 450 nm, with uncertainty of less than 0.02. Measurements of the size-resolved RRI can improve the understanding of the aerosol radiative effects.

scholarly journals Influence of future air pollution mitigation strategies on total aerosol radiative forcing

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (21) ◽  
pp. 6405-6437 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kloster ◽  
F. Dentener ◽  
J. Feichter ◽  
F. Raes ◽  
J. van Aardenne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Radiation Budget ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Pollution Mitigation ◽  
Aerosol Forcing ◽  
Future Air Pollution ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

Abstract. We apply different aerosol and aerosol precursor emission scenarios reflecting possible future control strategies for air pollution in the ECHAM5-HAM model, and simulate the resulting effect on the Earth's radiation budget. We use two opposing future mitigation strategies for the year 2030: one in which emission reduction legislation decided in countries throughout the world are effectively implemented (current legislation; CLE 2030) and one in which all technical options for emission reductions are being implemented independent of their cost (maximum feasible reduction; MFR 2030). We consider the direct, semi-direct and indirect radiative effects of aerosols. The total anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing defined as the difference in the top-of-the-atmosphere radiation between 2000 and pre-industrial times amounts to −2.00 W/m2. In the future this negative global annual mean aerosol radiative forcing will only slightly change (+0.02 W/m2) under the "current legislation" scenario. Regionally, the effects are much larger: e.g. over Eastern Europe radiative forcing would increase by +1.50 W/m2 because of successful aerosol reduction policies, whereas over South Asia it would decrease by −1.10 W/m2 because of further growth of emissions. A "maximum feasible reduction" of aerosols and their precursors would lead to an increase of the global annual mean aerosol radiative forcing by +1.13 W/m2. Hence, in the latter case, the present day negative anthropogenic aerosol forcing could be more than halved by 2030 because of aerosol reduction policies and climate change thereafter will be to a larger extent be controlled by greenhouse gas emissions. We combined these two opposing future mitigation strategies for a number of experiments focusing on different sectors and regions. In addition, we performed sensitivity studies to estimate the importance of future changes in oxidant concentrations and the importance of the aerosol microphysical coupling within the range of expected future changes. For changes in oxidant concentrations caused by future air pollution mitigation, we do not find a significant effect for the global annual mean radiative aerosol forcing. In the extreme case of only abating SO2 or carbonaceous emissions to a maximum feasible extent, we find deviations from additivity for the radiative forcing over anthropogenic source regions up to 10% compared to an experiment abating both at the same time.

scholarly journals Reply to “Comment on ‘Rethinking the Lower Bound on Aerosol Radiative Forcing’”

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (16) ◽  
pp. 6585-6589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjorn Stevens ◽  
Stephanie Fiedler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Lower Bound ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosols ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
The North ◽  
Aerosol Forcing

Kretzschmar et al., in a comment in 2017, use the spread in the output of aerosol–climate models to argue that the models refute the hypothesis (presented in a paper by Stevens in 2015) that for the mid-twentieth-century warming to be consistent with observations, then the present-day aerosol forcing, [Formula: see text] must be less negative than −1 W m−2. The main point of contention is the nature of the relationship between global SO2 emissions and [Formula: see text] In contrast to the concave (log-linear) relationship used by Stevens and in earlier studies, whereby [Formula: see text] becomes progressively less sensitive to SO2 emissions, some models suggest a convex relationship, which would imply a less negative lower bound. The model that best exemplifies this difference, and that is most clearly in conflict with the hypothesis of Stevens, does so because of an implausible aerosol response to the initial rise in anthropogenic aerosol precursor emissions in East and South Asia—already in 1975 this model’s clear-sky reflectance from anthropogenic aerosol over the North Pacific exceeds present-day estimates of the clear-sky reflectance by the total aerosol. The authors perform experiments using a new (observationally constrained) climatology of anthropogenic aerosols to further show that the effects of changing patterns of aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions during the late twentieth century have, for the same global emissions, relatively little effect on [Formula: see text] These findings suggest that the behavior Kretzschmar et al. identify as being in conflict with the lower bound in Stevens arises from an implausible relationship between SO2 emissions and [Formula: see text] and thus provides little basis for revising this lower bound.

scholarly journals MACv2-SP: a parameterization of anthropogenic aerosol optical properties and an associated Twomey effect for use in CMIP6

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 433-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjorn Stevens ◽  
Stephanie Fiedler ◽  
Stefan Kinne ◽  
Karsten Peters ◽  
Sebastian Rast ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Optical Properties ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Industrial Emissions ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Aerosol Optical Properties ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
Aerosol Forcing ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

Abstract. A simple plume implementation of the second version (v2) of the Max Planck Institute Aerosol Climatology, MACv2-SP, is described. MACv2-SP provides a prescription of anthropogenic aerosol optical properties and an associated Twomey effect. It was created to provide a harmonized description of post-1850 anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing for climate modeling studies. MACv2-SP has been designed to be easy to implement, change and use, and thereby enable studies exploring the climatic effects of different patterns of aerosol radiative forcing, including a Twomey effect. MACv2-SP is formulated in terms of nine spatial plumes associated with different major anthropogenic source regions. The shape of the plumes is fit to the Max Planck Institute Aerosol Climatology, version 2, whose present-day (2005) distribution is anchored by surface-based observations. Two types of plumes are considered: one predominantly associated with biomass burning, the other with industrial emissions. These differ in the prescription of their annual cycle and in their optical properties, thereby implicitly accounting for different contributions of absorbing aerosol to the different plumes. A Twomey effect for each plume is prescribed as a change in the host model's background cloud-droplet population density using relationships derived from satellite data. Year-to-year variations in the amplitude of the plumes over the historical period (1850–2016) are derived by scaling the plumes with associated national emission sources of SO2 and NH3. Experiments using MACv2-SP are performed with the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model. The globally and annually averaged instantaneous and effective aerosol radiative forcings are estimated to be −0.6 and −0.5 W m−2, respectively. Forcing from aerosol–cloud interactions (the Twomey effect) offsets the reduction of clear-sky forcing by clouds, so that the net effect of clouds on the aerosol forcing is small; hence, the clear-sky forcing, which is more readily measurable, provides a good estimate of the total aerosol forcing.

scholarly journals Observations and Modeling of the Surface Aerosol Radiative Forcing during UAE2

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (9) ◽  
pp. 2877-2891 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. M. Markowicz ◽  
P. J. Flatau ◽  
J. Remiszewska ◽  
M. Witek ◽  
E. A. Reid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Sea Breeze ◽  
Single Scattering ◽  
Land Breeze ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
Diurnal Variability ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Aerosol Forcing ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

Abstract Aerosol radiative forcing in the Persian Gulf region is derived from data collected during the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Unified Aerosol Experiment (UAE2). This campaign took place in August and September of 2004. The land–sea-breeze circulation modulates the diurnal variability of the aerosol properties and aerosol radiative forcing at the surface. Larger aerosol radiative forcing is observed during the land breeze in comparison to the sea breeze. The aerosol optical properties change as the onshore wind brings slightly cleaner air. The mean diurnal value of the surface aerosol forcing during the UAE2 campaign is about −20 W m−2, which corresponds to large aerosol optical thickness (0.45 at 500 nm). The aerosol forcing efficiency [i.e., broadband shortwave forcing per unit optical depth at 550 nm, W m−2 (τ500)−1] is −53 W m−2 (τ500)−1 and the average single scattering albedo is 0.93 at 550 nm.

scholarly journals Opportunistic Experiments to Constrain Aerosol Effective Radiative Forcing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Christensen ◽  
Andrew Gettelman ◽  
Jan Cermak ◽  
Guy Dagan ◽  
Michael Diamond ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Forest Fires ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Point Sources ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosol ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

Abstract. Aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) are considered to be the most uncertain driver of present-day radiative forcing due to human activities. The non-linearity of cloud-state changes to aerosol perturbations make it challenging to attribute causality in observed relationships of aerosol radiative forcing. Using correlations to infer causality can also be challenging when meteorological variability also drives both aerosol and cloud changes independently. Natural and anthropogenic aerosol perturbations from well defined sources provide “opportunistic experiments” (also known as natural experiments) to investigate ACI in cases where causality may be more confidently inferred. These perturbations cover a wide range of locations and spatio-temporal scales, including point sources such as volcanic eruptions or industrial sources, plumes from biomass burning or forest fires, and tracks from individual ships or shipping corridors. We review the different experimental conditions and conduct a synthesis of the available satellite data sets and field campaigns to place these opportunistic experiments on a common footing, facilitating new insights and a clearer understanding of key uncertainties in aerosol radiative forcing. Strong liquid water path increases due to aerosol perturbations are largely ruled out by averaging across experiments. Cloud albedo perturbations are strongly sensitive to background meteorological conditions. Opportunistic experiments have significantly improved process level understanding of ACI, but it remains unclear how reliably the relationships found can be scaled to the global level, thus, demonstrating a need for deeper investigation in order to improve assessments of aerosol radiative forcing and climate change.

scholarly journals Intercomparison of shortwave radiative transfer schemes in global aerosol modeling: results from the AeroCom Radiative Transfer Experiment

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 32631-32706 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. A. Randles ◽  
S. Kinne ◽  
G. Myhre ◽  
M. Schulz ◽  
P. Stier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiative Transfer ◽  
Multiple Scattering ◽  
Radiative Forcing ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Aerosol Radiative Forcing ◽  
Aerosol Forcing ◽  
Aerosol Absorption ◽  
Relative Standard ◽  
Aerosol Modeling ◽  
Aerosol Radiative

Abstract. In this study we examine the performance of 31 global model radiative transfer schemes in cloud-free conditions with prescribed gaseous absorbers and no aerosols (Rayleigh atmosphere), with prescribed scattering-only aerosols, and with more absorbing aerosols. Results are compared to benchmark results from high-resolution, multi-angular line-by-line radiation models. For purely scattering aerosols, model bias relative to the line-by-line models in the top-of-the atmosphere aerosol radiative forcing ranges from roughly −10 to 20%, with over- and underestimates of radiative cooling at higher and lower sun elevation, respectively. Inter-model diversity (relative standard deviation) increases from ~10 to 15% as sun elevation increases. Inter-model diversity in atmospheric and surface forcing decreases with increased aerosol absorption, indicating that the treatment of multiple-scattering is more variable than aerosol absorption in the models considered. Aerosol radiative forcing results from multi-stream models are generally in better agreement with the line-by-line results than the simpler two-stream schemes. Considering radiative fluxes, model performance is generally the same or slightly better than results from previous radiation scheme intercomparisons. However, the inter-model diversity in aerosol radiative forcing remains large, primarily as a result of the treatment of multiple-scattering. Results indicate that global models that estimate aerosol radiative forcing with two-stream radiation schemes may be subject to persistent biases introduced by these schemes, particularly for regional aerosol forcing.

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