Abstract
The effect of aerosols is an important indicator of climate change. Sulfate aerosols, as the major scattering aerosols, which have attracted more and more attention in recent years. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) were utilized to investigate the spatial distribution of sulfate aerosols and their radiative forcing characteristics over East Asia in 2010. Results showed that sulfate aerosols were mainly distributed over eastern China (24–43° N, 101–126° E), especially in the Sichuan Basin. The concentration of sulfate aerosols decreased with increasing altitude over East Asia. It also exhibited obvious seasonal variations, where the largest range of sulfate aerosol concentrations was found in summer, with a maximum of 2.4 μg kg−1 over eastern China. Although sulfate aerosol concentrations varied slightly during day and night, there was still a significantly difference in the sulfate aerosol radiative forcing. Specifically, the magnitude of the direct radiative forcing induced by sulfate aerosols at the surface was approximately −3.02 W m−2 in the daytime, while that was +0.24 W m−2 in the nighttime. This asymmetric change that was caused by the radiative forcing of sulfate aerosols between day and night would have significant impacts on climate change at the regional scale.
Highlights
Aerosols are active components of Earth’s atmosphere
The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) was used to investigate the characteristics of direct radiative forcing induced by sulfate aerosols under the all-sky over East Asia
When compared with the spatial distributions of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and MISR measurements, the model results agreed reasonably well with observations, indicating that the WRF-Chem model can capture the characteristics of aerosol optical depth (AOD) seasonal variations, with the highest in summer and the lowest in winter
Summary
Aerosols are active components of Earth’s atmosphere. Scholars were increasingly concerned about their contributions to global climate change [1,2,3,4]. Kiehl et al (1993) [26] changed model and suggested that direct radiative forcing of anthropogenic sulfate was −0.28 W m−2 at the global scale. Research (NCAR) model to quantify the value of direct radiative forcing induced by anthropogenic sulfate aerosols of −0.37 W m−2 at the global scale. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) was used to investigate the characteristics of direct radiative forcing induced by sulfate aerosols under the all-sky over East Asia. The motivation of our study is to investigate the sulfate aerosol concentrations distribution and to understand the sulfate aerosols radiative forcing changing, reduce the uncertainty of the simulated radiative forcing induced by sulfate aerosol during the daytime and nighttime, and provide a scientific basis for the effects of sulfate aerosols on regional climate
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