Connecting regional aerosol emissions reductions to local and remote precipitation responses

Westervelt, Daniel M.; Conley, Andrew J.; Fiore, Arlene M.; Lamarque, Jean-François; Shindell, Drew T.; Previdi, Michael; Mascioli, Nora R.; Faluvegi, Greg; Correa, Gustavo; Horowitz, Larry W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-12461-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-12461-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-12461-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 16

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

28 Aug 2018

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 28 Aug 2018

Connecting regional aerosol emissions reductions to local and remote precipitation responses

Daniel M. Westervelt, Andrew J. Conley, Arlene M. Fiore, Jean-François Lamarque, Drew T. Shindell, Michael Previdi, Nora R. Mascioli, Greg Faluvegi, Gustavo Correa, and Larry W. Horowitz

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-12461-2018-supplement

Data sets

NCAR-CESM1 data D. M.~Westervelt https://figshare.com/articles/CESM1_precip/5738568

NCAR-CESM1 Effective Radiative Forcing Data D. M.~Westervelt https://figshare.com/articles/ERF/5732397

GISS-E2 precipitation data D. M.~Westervelt https://figshare.com/articles/GISS_data/5738565/1

GFDL-CM3 precipitation data D. M.~Westervelt https://figshare.com/articles/GFDL_precip_data/5738562

Model code and software

GFDL-CM3 model GFDL https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/am3/

NCAR-CESM1 model CESM http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/cesm1.0/

GISS-E2 model GISS https://simplex.giss.nasa.gov/snapshots/

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Short summary

Small particles in Earth's atmosphere (also referred to as atmospheric aerosols) emitted by human activities impact Earth's climate in complex ways and play an important role in Earth's water cycle. We use a climate modeling approach and find that aerosols from the United States and Europe can have substantial effects on rainfall in far-away regions such as Africa's Sahel or the Mediterranean. Air pollution controls in these regions may help reduce the likelihood and severity of Sahel drought.