Aerosol Radiative Effects

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2019) | Viewed by 9064

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Kuopio, Finland
Interests: global and regional modeling of atmospheric aerosols and their radiative effects; aerosol remote sensing; aerosol–cloud interactions; biogenic aerosols; aerosol optical properties; air quality

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Kuopio, Finland
Interests: remote sensing of aerosols and clouds; radiative effects of aerosols and clouds; aerosol optical properties; atmospheric solar radiation; atmospheric UV radiation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Even though atmospheric aerosols have been studied extensively, their radiative effects, both direct and indirect, form the largest source of uncertainty in the estimates of the Earth’s changing energy budget. Despite their small mass/volume fraction, aerosol particles have a significant impact on radiative transfer, thus affecting the weather and climate. Atmospheric aerosols interact with the solar radiation through scattering and absorption and, to a lesser extent, with the terrestrial radiation through absorption, scattering, and emission. Furthermore, aerosol particles can act as cloud condensation nuclei and ice nuclei upon which cloud droplets and ice crystals form. Consequently, the role of aerosols in the atmosphere is versatile, and aerosols from anthropogenic sources dominate the uncertainty in the total anthropogenic radiative forcing.

Our confidence in the scientific understanding of aerosol–radiation interactions and aerosol–cloud interactions is still medium at the best. Thus, the range of uncertainty regarding these interactions needs to be reduced significantly to improve our understanding of climate change. Therefore, new and insightful studies based on observations and modeling are needed to better constrain the uncertainties concerning the radiative effects of atmospheric aerosols. Manuscripts on all these aspects are welcome for this Special Issue.

Dr. Tero Mielonen
Prof. Antti Arola
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • atmospheric aerosols
  • aerosol–radiation interactions
  • aerosol–cloud interactions, aerosol chemical and physical properties
  • aerosol measurements, remote sensing and modeling

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 597 KiB  
Article
Sensitivity of Radiative Fluxes to Aerosols in the ALADIN-HIRLAM Numerical Weather Prediction System
by Laura Rontu, Emily Gleeson, Daniel Martin Perez, Kristian Pagh Nielsen and Velle Toll
Atmosphere 2020, 11(2), 205; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11020205 - 14 Feb 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4610
Abstract
The direct radiative effect of aerosols is taken into account in many limited-area numerical weather prediction models using wavelength-dependent aerosol optical depths of a range of aerosol species. We studied the impact of aerosol distribution and optical properties on radiative transfer, based on [...] Read more.
The direct radiative effect of aerosols is taken into account in many limited-area numerical weather prediction models using wavelength-dependent aerosol optical depths of a range of aerosol species. We studied the impact of aerosol distribution and optical properties on radiative transfer, based on climatological and more realistic near real-time aerosol data. Sensitivity tests were carried out using the single-column version of the ALADIN-HIRLAM numerical weather prediction system, set up to use the HLRADIA simple broadband radiation scheme. The tests were restricted to clear-sky cases to avoid the complication of cloud–radiation–aerosol interactions. The largest differences in radiative fluxes and heating rates were found to be due to different aerosol loads. When the loads are large, the radiative fluxes and heating rates are sensitive to the aerosol inherent optical properties and the vertical distribution of the aerosol species. In such cases, regional weather models should use external real-time aerosol data for radiation parametrizations. Impacts of aerosols on shortwave radiation dominate longwave impacts. Sensitivity experiments indicated the important effects of highly absorbing black carbon aerosols and strongly scattering desert dust. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerosol Radiative Effects)
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21 pages, 3219 KiB  
Article
Comparison of Anthropogenic Aerosol Climate Effects among Three Climate Models with Reduced Complexity
by Xiangjun Shi, Wentao Zhang and Jiaojiao Liu
Atmosphere 2019, 10(8), 456; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10080456 - 9 Aug 2019
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3803
Abstract
The same prescribed anthropogenic aerosol forcing was implemented into three climate models. The atmosphere components of these participating climate models were the GAMIL, ECHAM, and CAM models. Ensemble simulations were carried out to obtain a reliable estimate of anthropogenic aerosol effective radiative forcing [...] Read more.
The same prescribed anthropogenic aerosol forcing was implemented into three climate models. The atmosphere components of these participating climate models were the GAMIL, ECHAM, and CAM models. Ensemble simulations were carried out to obtain a reliable estimate of anthropogenic aerosol effective radiative forcing (ERF). The ensemble mean ERFs from these three participating models with this aerosol forcing were −0.27, −0.63, and −0.54 W∙m−2. The model diversity in ERF is clearly reduced as compared with those based on the models’ own default approaches (−1.98, −0.21, and −2.22 W∙m−2). This is consistent with the design of this aerosol forcing. The modeled ERF can be decomposed into two basic components, i.e., the instantaneous radiative forcing (RF) from aerosol–radiation interactions (RFari) and the aerosol-induced changes in cloud forcing (△Fcloud*). For the three participating models, the model diversity in RFari (−0.21, −0.33, and −0.29 W∙m−2) could be constrained by reducing the differences in natural aerosol radiative forcings. However, it was difficult to figure out the reason for the model diversity in △Fcloud* (−0.05, −0.28, and −0.24 W∙m−2), which was the dominant source of the model diversity in ERF. The variability of modeled ERF was also studied. Ensemble simulations showed that the modeled RFs were very stable. The rapid adjustments (ERF − RF) had an important role to play in the quantification of the perturbation of ERF. Fortunately, the contribution from the rapid adjustments to the mean ERF was very small. This study also showed that we should pay attention to the difference between the aerosol climate effects we want and the aerosol climate effects we calculate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aerosol Radiative Effects)
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