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Why does knowledge of past aerosol forcing matter for future climate change?
Author(s) -
Lohmann Ulrike
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1002/2017jd026962
Subject(s) - aerosol , radiative forcing , forcing (mathematics) , environmental science , cloud forcing , climate model , atmospheric sciences , climatology , climate change , meteorology , geography , physics , geology , oceanography
Aerosol particles scatter and absorb radiation and interact with cloud particles. The net aerosol forcing since preindustrial times is negative and has offset part of the greenhouse gas warming. It dominates the uncertainty of the overall anthropogenic forcing. This large uncertainty results from gaps in our knowledge on the underlying aerosol and cloud microphysical processes and aerosol‐cloud interactions as well as their representation in global coupled aerosol‐climate models. A recent paper by Nazarenko et al. (2017) illustrates how the anthropogenic aerosol forcing, especially the effective radiative forcing that includes aerosol‐cloud and aerosol‐radiation interactions, depends on climate feedbacks and on the employed aerosol model.