Black Carbon Radiative Effects Research Articles

Black carbon-induced snow albedo reduction over the Tibetan Plateau: uncertainties from snow grain shape and aerosol–snow mixing state based on an updated SNICAR model

Abstract. We implement a set of new parameterizations into the widely used Snow, Ice, and Aerosol Radiative (SNICAR) model to account for effects of snow grain shape (spherical vs. nonspherical) and black carbon (BC)–snow mixing state (external vs. internal). We find that nonspherical snow grains lead to higher pure albedo but weaker BC-induced albedo reductions relative to spherical snow grains, while BC–snow internal mixing significantly enhances albedo reductions relative to external mixing. The combination of snow nonsphericity and internal mixing suggests an important interactive effect on BC-induced albedo reduction. Comparisons with observations of clean and BC-contaminated snow albedo show that model simulations accounting for both snow nonsphericity and BC–snow internal mixing perform better than those using the common assumption of spherical snow grains and external mixing. We further apply the updated SNICAR model with comprehensive in situ measurements of BC concentrations in the Tibetan Plateau snowpack to quantify the present-day (2000–2015) BC-induced snow albedo effects from a regional and seasonal perspective. The BC concentrations show distinct and substantial sub-regional and seasonal variations, with higher values in the non-monsoon season and low altitudes. As a result, the BC-induced regional mean snow albedo reductions and surface radiative effects vary by up to an order of magnitude across different sub-regions and seasons, with values of 0.7–30.7 and 1.4–58.4 W m−2 for BC externally mixed with fresh and aged snow spheres, respectively. The BC radiative effects are further complicated by uncertainty in snow grain shape and BC–snow mixing state. BC–snow internal mixing enhances the mean albedo effects over the plateau by 30–60 % relative to external mixing, while nonspherical snow grains decrease the mean albedo effects by up to 31 % relative to spherical grains. Based on this study, extensive measurements and improved model characterization of snow grain shape and aerosol–snow mixing state are urgently needed in order to precisely evaluate BC–snow albedo effects.

Radiative effects of black carbon aerosols on Indian monsoon: a study using WRF-Chem model

The Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) is utilized to examine the radiative effects of black carbon (BC) aerosols on the Indian monsoon, for the year 2010. Five ensemble simulations with different initial conditions (1st to 5th December, 2009) were performed and simulation results between 1st January, 2010 to 31st December, 2010 were used for analysis. Most of the BC which stays near the surface during the pre-monsoon season gets transported to higher altitudes with the northward migration of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) during the monsoon season. In both the seasons, strong negative SW anomalies are present at the surface along with positive anomalies in the atmosphere, which results in the surface cooling and lower tropospheric heating, respectively. During the pre-monsoon season, lower troposphere heating causes increased convection and enhanced meridional wind circulation, bringing moist air from Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal to the North-East India, leading to increased rainfall there. However, during the monsoon season, along with cooling over the land regions, a warming over the Bay of Bengal is simulated. This differential heating results in an increased westerly moisture flux anomaly over central India, leading to increased rainfall over northern parts of India but decreased rainfall over southern parts. Decreased rainfall over southern India is also substantiated by the presence of increased evaporation over Bay of Bengal and decrease over land regions.

Black carbon simulations using a size‐ and mixing‐state‐resolved three‐dimensional model: 1. Radiative effects and their uncertainties

AbstractThis study quantifies how uncertainties in the size distribution and mixing state parameters of black carbon (BC) emissions translate into the uncertainties in BC radiative effects by using a particle‐size‐ and mixing‐state‐resolved three‐dimensional model, the Weather Research and Forecasting model with chemistry (WRF‐chem) with the Aerosol Two‐dimensional bin module for foRmation and Aging Simulation (ATRAS) and the Model for Simulating Aerosol Interactions and Chemistry (MOSAIC). The WRF‐chem/ATRAS‐MOSAIC model can explicitly calculate BC processes in the atmosphere, such as BC aging due to condensation and coagulation and the resulting enhancement of absorption and cloud condensation nuclei activity, with 12 size and 10 BC mixing state bins (128 bins in total). Fifteen model simulations perturbing the emission parameters within their uncertainties are conducted over East Asia (spring 2009) to understand which parameters and processes are important and which are associated with the uncertainty in evaluating BC radiative effects. The simulations reveal a large variability (uncertainty) of BC optical and radiative variables over the East Asian region (the variability is 58–99%), which corresponds to ranges of BC radiative effect of 1.6–2.8 W m−2 at the top of the atmosphere and from −5.2 to −2.1 W m−2 at the surface over East Asia. BC optical and radiative variables are 3 to 5 times sensitive to the size and the mixing state in emissions than BC mass concentrations (the variability is 20%). The two main causes of the difference in sensitivity are the reduction of the variability of BC mass concentrations by coagulation and the enhancement of the variability of BC absorption by resolving BC mixing state. These complicated responses of aerosol processes can be calculated for the first time using a detailed aerosol model such as ATRAS. The results suggest that the following two points are important in the estimation of BC radiative effects: (1) reduction of the uncertainties in the aerosol size distribution and mixing state in emissions and (2) improvement of the representation of BC mixing state and absorption enhancement in aerosol models because most models do not treat them sufficiently.

Variation of the radiative properties during black carbon aging: theoretical and experimental intercomparison

Abstract. A theoretical black carbon (BC) aging model is developed to account for three typical evolution stages, namely, freshly emitted aggregates, BC coated by soluble material, and BC particles undergoing further hygroscopic growth. The geometric-optics surface-wave (GOS) approach is employed to compute the BC single-scattering properties at each aging stage, which are subsequently compared with laboratory measurements. Theoretical calculations are consistent with measurements in extinction and absorption cross sections for fresh BC aggregates with different BC sizes (i.e., mobility diameters of 155, 245, and 320 nm), with differences of ≤ 25 %. The measured optical cross sections for BC coated by sulfuric acid and for that undergoing further hygroscopic growth are generally captured (differences < 30 %) by theoretical calculations using a concentric core-shell structure, with an overestimate in extinction and absorption of the smallest BC size and an underestimate in scattering of the largest BC size. We find that the absorption and scattering cross sections of fresh BC aggregates vary by 20–40 and 50–65 %, respectively, due to the use of upper (1.95–0.79i) and lower (1.75–0.63i) bounds of BC refractive index, while the variations are < 20 % in absorption and < 50 % in scattering in the case of coated BC particles. Sensitivity analyses of the BC morphology show that the optical properties of fresh BC aggregates are more sensitive to fractal dimension than primary spherule size. The absorption and scattering cross sections of coated BC particles vary by more than a factor of 2 due to different coating structures. We find an increase of 20–250 % in absorption and a factor of 3–15 in scattering during aging, significantly depending on coating morphology and aging stages. This study suggests that an accurate estimate of BC radiative effects requires the incorporation of a dynamic BC aging process that accounts for realistic coating structures in climate models.

Role of the Radiative Effect of Black Carbon in Simulated PM2.5Concentrations during a Haze Event in China

Role of the Radiative Effect of Black Carbon in Simulated PM_2.5Concentrations during a Haze Event in China

Radiative Forcing of Black Carbon over Delhi

The radiative effects of black carbon (BC) aerosols over New Delhi, the capital city of India, for the period August 2010–July 2011, have been investigated using Santa Barbara DISTORT Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (SBDART) model in the present paper. The monthly mean BC concentrations in Delhi, an urban location, vary in between 15.935 ± 2.06 μg m−3(December 2010)–2.44 ± 0.58 μg m−3(July 2011). The highest value for monthly mean BC forcing has been found to be in November 2010 (66.10 ± 6.86 Wm−2) and the lowest in July 2011 (23 ± 3.89 Wm−2). Being the host city for the XIX Commonwealth Games (CWG-2010), government of Delhi set up a plan to reduce emissions of air pollutants during Games, from 03 October to 14 October, 2010. But opposite to the expectations, the emission controls implemented were not sufficient to reduce the pollutants like black carbon (BC), and therefore relatively a high value of BC radiative forcing (44.36 ± 2.4) was observed during the month of October 2010.

Sensitivity studies on the impacts of Tibetan Plateau snowpack pollution on the Asian hydrological cycle and monsoon climate

Abstract. The Tibetan Plateau (TP) has long been identified to be critical in regulating the Asian monsoon climate and hydrological cycle. In this modeling study a series of numerical experiments with a global climate model are designed to simulate radiative effect of black carbon (BC) and dust in snow, and to assess the relative impacts of anthropogenic CO2 and carbonaceous particles in the atmosphere and snow on the snowpack over the TP and subsequent impacts on the Asian monsoon climate and hydrological cycle. Simulations results show a large BC content in snow over the TP, especially the southern slope. Because of the high aerosol content in snow and large incident solar radiation in the low latitude and high elevation, the TP exhibits the largest surface radiative flux changes induced by aerosols (e.g. BC, Dust) in snow compared to any other snow-covered regions in the world. Simulation results show that the aerosol-induced snow albedo perturbations generate surface radiative flux changes of 5–25 W m−2 during spring, with a maximum in April or May. BC-in-snow increases the surface air temperature by around 1.0 °C averaged over the TP and reduces spring snowpack over the TP more than pre-industrial to present CO2 increase and carbonaceous particles in the atmosphere. As a result, runoff increases during late winter and early spring but decreases during late spring and early summer (i.e. a trend toward earlier melt dates). The snowmelt efficacy, defined as the snowpack reduction per unit degree of warming induced by the forcing agent, is 1–4 times larger for BC-in-snow than CO2 increase during April–July, indicating that BC-in-snow more efficiently accelerates snowmelt because the increased net solar radiation induced by reduced albedo melts the snow more efficiently than snow melt due to warming in the air. The TP also influences the South (SAM) and East (EAM) Asian monsoon through its dynamical and thermal forcing. Simulation results show that during boreal spring aerosols are transported by southwesterly, causing some particles to reach higher altitude and deposit to the snowpack over the TP. While BC and Organic Matter (OM) in the atmosphere directly absorb sunlight and warm the air, the darkened snow surface polluted by BC absorbs more solar radiation and increases the skin temperature, which warms the air above through sensible heat flux. Both effects enhance the upward motion of air and spur deep convection along the TP during the pre-monsoon season, resulting in earlier onset of the SAM and increase of moisture, cloudiness and convective precipitation over northern India. BC-in-snow has a more significant impact on the EAM in July than CO2 increase and carbonaceous particles in the atmosphere. Contributed by the significant increase of both sensible heat flux associated with the warm skin temperature and latent heat flux associated with increased soil moisture with long memory, the role of the TP as a heat pump is elevated from spring through summer as the land-sea thermal contrast increases to strengthen the EAM. As a result, both southern China and northern China become wetter, but central China (i.e. Yangtze River Basin) becomes drier – a near-zonal anomaly pattern that is consistent with the dominant mode of precipitation variability in East Asia. The snow impurity effects reported in this study likely represent some upper limits as snowpack is remarkably overestimated over the TP due to excessive precipitation. Improving the simulation of precipitation and snowpack will be important for improved estimates of the effects of snowpack pollution in future work.

Black Carbon and West African Monsoon precipitation: observations and simulations

Abstract. We have recently investigated large-scale co-variability between aerosol and precipitation and other meteorological variables in the West African Monsoon (WAM) region using long term satellite observations and reanalysis data. In this study we compared the observational results to a global model simulation including only direct radiative forcing of black carbon (BC). From both observations and model simulations we found that in boreal cold seasons anomalously high African aerosols are associated with significant reductions in cloud amount, cloud top height, and surface precipitation. These results suggest that the observed precipitation reduction in the WAM region is caused by radiative effect of BC. The result also suggests that the BC effect on precipitation is nonlinear.

Simulation of direct effects of black carbon aerosol on temperature and hydrological cycle in Asia by a Regional Climate Model

The simulation of direct radiative effect of black carbon (BC) aerosol over Asia is carried out with application of Regional Climate Model RegCM3 over the period of 1993–2003 based on BC emission inventory in 2000. Major findings are as follows. The column burden of BC exceeds 1 mg/m2 in central, eastern, and southern China with the highest value of 2.5 mg/m2 over Sichuan Basin of China, and is of 1–2 mg/m2 in India subcontinent. The column averaged advection field of BC shows an eastward tendency in north of 20° N, whereas an opposite trend is found in south of 10° N. Off-line radiative forcing (RF) induced by BC, which is due to direct absorption or scattering of BC, is positive at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), while maximum effect is found over Sichuan Basin. The RF is of 1–1.5 W/m2 in areas such as the middle and low reaches of the Yangtze River, East China Sea, South China Sea, Indo-China Peninsula and most parts of Indian subcontinent. Surface RF is found to be negative and its absolute value is larger than that at TOA. Based on simulation results, BC’s impacts on temperature, stratification stability, water vapor, precipitation and evaporation etc., are primarily characterized by cold-and-wet change in southern and northwest China, cold-and-dry change in northern and northeast China, warm-and-wet change of India subcontinent, as well as warm-and-dry change of Central Asia.

Climate trade-off between black carbon and carbon dioxide emissions

There are various difficulties involved with comparing the effects of short-lived and long-lived atmospheric species on climate. Global warming potentials (GWPs) can be computed for pulse emissions of short-lived species. However, if the focus is on the long-term effect of a pulse emission occurring today, GWPs do not factor in the fact that if a radiative forcing is applied for a short period, the climate system has time to relax back to equilibrium. The concept of global temperature change potential (GTP) at a time horizon for an emission pulse has been proposed to circumvent this problem. Here we show how GTPs can be used to compare black carbon (BC) and CO 2 emissions and the methodology is illustrated with two concrete examples. In particular we discuss a trade-off situation where a decrease in BC emissions is associated with a fuel penalty and therefore an additional CO 2 emission. A parameter—which depends on the BC radiative effects, the BC emission reduction and the additional CO 2 emission—is defined and can be compared to a critical parameter to assess whether or not the BC emission reduction wins over the fuel penalty for various time horizons. We show how this concept can be generalised to compare the climate effects of carbon dioxide against a set of short-lived species and to account for differences in climate efficacy. Finally, the need for additional research is discussed in the light of current uncertainties.

A modeling study on the climate impacts of black carbon aerosols

A three‐dimensional interactive aerosol‐climate model has been developed and used to study the climatic impact of black carbon (BC) aerosols. When compared with the model's natural variability, significant global‐scale changes caused by BC aerosols occurred in surface latent and sensible heat flux, surface net long‐wave radiative flux, planetary boundary layer height, convective precipitation (all negative), and low‐cloud coverage (positive), all closely related to the hydrological cycle. The most significant regional change caused by BC revealed in this study is in precipitation that occurs in the tropics (shift of precipitation center in the ITCZ) and in the middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (change in snow depth). Influenced by BC caused changes in cloud cover and surface albedo, the interactive model provides smaller positive all‐sky forcing at the top of atmosphere (TOA) and larger negative forcing at the surface than the offline diagnostics (the direct forcings). The actual solar radiative forcings by BC derived from the interactive model also exhibit significant interannual variations that are up to 4 times as large as their means. Based on the revealed changes in cloud radiative forcing by BC, a non‐Twomey‐Albrecht indirect forcing by BC that alters radiative budgets by changing cloud cover via thermodynamics rather than microphysics is also defined. It has been demonstrated that with an absolute amount more than 2 times higher than that of the TOA forcing, the surface forcing by BC is a very important factor in analyzing the climatic impact of BC. The result of this study suggests that with a constant annual emission of 14 TgC, BC aerosols do not cause a significant change in global‐mean surface temperature. The calculated surface temperature change is determined by a subtle balance among changes in surface energy budget as well as in the hydrological cycle, all caused by BC forcing and often compensate each other. The result of this study shows that the influences of BC aerosols on climate and environment are more significant in regional scale than in global scale. Important feedbacks between BC radiative effects and climate dynamics revealed in this study suggest the importance of using interactive aerosol‐climate models to address the issues related to the climate impacts of aerosols.

On radiative effects of black carbon and sulphate aerosols

Most aerosol particles, such as sulphate and sea-salt particles, mainly scatter solar radiation, whilst soot (in the form of elemental carbon or “black” carbon, BC) in addition leads to considerable absorption. This scattering and absorption by the aerosol particles constitute the so-called direct aerosol effect. In this paper, we present results from a study of possible direct effects of tropospheric BC and sulphate aerosols, with an emphasis on BC aerosols, along a line from North Africa through Europe into the Arctic. Radiative budgets in a cloud-free atmosphere are estimated. Based on model-calculated distributions of BC and sulphate (provided by Seland and Iversen, 1998) and assumed size distributions of the background aerosol, new size distributions are obtained by adding natural, biomass burning and fossil fuel contributions to the background aerosol. Added nucleation mode particles are assumed externally mixed, whereas added accumulation mode BC and sulphate is internally mixed with the background according to condensational growth and Brownian coagulation theory. Humidity effects are taken into account by use of the Köhler equation. Mie calculations provide the resulting optical parameters, and the forcing is finally estimated by use of a radiative transfer model. A reference run and a series of eleven test-runs are performed to investigate the sensitivity of various assumptions on the contribution to upward TOA irradiance from BC and non-sea-salt sulphate. The tests suggest a high sensitivity to presence of BC and to particle swelling due to humidity. The sensitivity to assumed distribution of BC on particle size is more moderate. The same is true for the vertical resolution and the number concentration of the background aerosol. The effect of mixing organic carbon (OC) internally with biomass burning BC nucleation mode particles is characterized as moderate. The role of OC is, however, still uncertain. The same holds true for the optical thickness of the background atmosphere, for which we found a high sensitivity in this study. Other assumptions that were investigated had only small effects on the forcing. For the reference run we find a minimum in the aerosol forcing of approximately −5 W m -2 near the most polluted areas in Europe, and a maximum of approximately 2 W m -2 over North Africa. A warming effect is also found for the Arctic region, with forcing values up to 0.4 W m -2.