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Potential impacts of Asian carbon aerosols on future US warming
Author(s) -
Teng Haiyan,
Washington Warren M.,
Branstator Grant,
Meehl Gerald A.,
Lamarque JeanFrancois
Publication year - 2012
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 - 10.1029/2012gl051723
Subject(s) - environmental science , aerosol , atmospheric sciences , climatology , atmosphere (unit) , troposphere , climate change , global warming , meteorology , geography , oceanography , geology
This study uses an atmosphere‐ocean fully coupled climate model to investigate possible remote impacts of Asian carbonaceous aerosols on US climate change. We took a 21st century mitigation scenario as a reference, and carried out three sets of sensitivity experiments in which the prescribed carbonaceous aerosol concentrations over a selected Asian domain are increased by a factor of two, six, and ten respectively during the period of 2005–2024. The resulting enhancement of atmospheric solar absorption (only the direct effect of aerosols is included) over Asia induces tropospheric heating anomalies that force large‐scale circulation changes which, averaged over the twenty‐year period, add as much as an additional 0.4°C warming over the eastern US during winter and over most of the US during summer. Such remote impacts are confirmed by an atmosphere stand‐alone experiment with specified heating anomalies over Asia that represent the direct effect of the carbon aerosols.