Robust evidence for reversal of the trend in aerosol effective climate forcing

Quaas, Johannes; Jia, Hailing; Smith, Chris; Albright, Anna Lea; Aas, Wenche; Bellouin, Nicolas; Boucher, Olivier; Doutriaux-Boucher, Marie; Forster, Piers M.; Grosvenor, Daniel; Jenkins, Stuart; Klimont, Zbigniew; Loeb, Norman G.; Ma, Xiaoyan; Naik, Vaishali; Paulot, Fabien; Stier, Philip; Wild, Martin; Myhre, Gunnar; Schulz, Michael

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 18

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 18

Research article

|

21 Sep 2022

Research article |

| 21 Sep 2022

Robust evidence for reversal of the trend in aerosol effective climate forcing

Johannes Quaas, Hailing Jia, Chris Smith, Anna Lea Albright, Wenche Aas, Nicolas Bellouin, Olivier Boucher, Marie Doutriaux-Boucher, Piers M. Forster, Daniel Grosvenor, Stuart Jenkins, Zbigniew Klimont, Norman G. Loeb, Xiaoyan Ma, Vaishali Naik, Fabien Paulot, Philip Stier, Martin Wild, Gunnar Myhre, and Michael Schulz

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12221-2022-supplement

Data sets

MODIS Atmosphere L2 Aerosol Product R. Levy, C. Hsu, A. Sayer, S. Mattoo, and J. Lee https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD04_L2.061

MODIS Atmosphere L2 Aerosol Product R. Levy, C. Hsu, A. Sayer, S. Mattoo, and J. Lee https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD04_L2.061

MODIS atmosphere L2 cloud product (06_L2) S. Platnick, S. Ackerman, M. King, G. Wind, K. Meyer, P. Menzel, R. Frey, R. Holz, B. Baum, and P. Yang https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD06_L2.006

MODIS atmosphere L2 cloud product (06_L2) S. Platnick, S. Ackerman, M. King, G. Wind, K. Meyer, P. Menzel, R. Frey, R. Holz, B. Baum, and P. Yang https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD06_L2.006

Polar Multi-Sensor Aerosol Optical Properties Climate Data Record Release 1 – Metop-A and -B EUMETSAT https://doi.org/10.15770/EUM_SEC_CLM_0053

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Short summary

Pollution particles cool climate and offset part of the global warming. However, they are washed out by rain and thus their effect responds quickly to changes in emissions. We show multiple datasets to demonstrate that aerosol emissions and their concentrations declined in many regions influenced by human emissions, as did the effects on clouds. Consequently, the cooling impact on the Earth energy budget became smaller. This change in trend implies a relative warming.