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Indirect long‐term global radiative cooling from NO x Emissions
Author(s) -
Wild Oliver,
Prather Michael J.,
Akimoto Hajime
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2000gl012573
Subject(s) - radiative forcing , troposphere , greenhouse gas , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , radiative transfer , climatology , greenhouse effect , radiative cooling , perturbation (astronomy) , forcing (mathematics) , global warming , climate change , meteorology , physics , oceanography , geology , quantum mechanics
Anthropogenic emissions of short‐lived, chemically reactive gases, such as NO x and CO, are known to influence climate by altering the chemistry of the global troposphere and thereby the abundance of the greenhouse gases O 3 , CH 4 and the HFCs. This study uses the characteristics of the natural modes of the tropospheric chemical system to decompose the greenhouse effect of NO x and CO emissions into (i) short‐lived modes involving predominantly tropospheric O 3 and (ii) the long‐lived mode involving a global coupled CH 4 ‐CO‐O 3 perturbation. Combining these two classes of greenhouse perturbations—large, short‐lived, regional O 3 increases and smaller, long‐lived, global decreases in CH 4 and O 3 —we find that most types of anthropogenic NO x emissions lead to a negative radiative forcing and an overall cooling of the earth.