Articles | Volume 25, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3109-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3109-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
14 Mar 2025
Research article |
| 14 Mar 2025
| 14 Mar 2025
The impact of uncertainty in black carbon's refractive index on simulated optical depth and radiative forcing
Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Knut von Salzen
Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Adam H. Monahan
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Nathan P. Gillett
Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Jiangnan Li
Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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Air pollutants, like ozone and soot, play a role in both global warming and air quality. Atmospheric models are often used to provide information to policy makers about current and future conditions under different emissions scenarios. In order to have confidence in those simulations, in this study we compare simulated air pollution from 18 state-of-the-art atmospheric models to measured air pollution in order to assess how well the models perform.
Hengqi Wang, Yiran Peng, Knut von Salzen, Yan Yang, Wei Zhou, and Delong Zhao
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2949–2971, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2949-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2949-2022, 2022
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The aerosol activation scheme is an important part of the general circulation model, but evaluations using observed data are mostly regional. This research introduced a numerically efficient aerosol activation scheme and evaluated it by using stratus and stratocumulus cloud data sampled during multiple aircraft campaigns in Canada, Chile, Brazil, and China. The decent performance indicates that the scheme is suitable for simulations of cloud droplet number concentrations over wide conditions.
Julia Schmale, Sangeeta Sharma, Stefano Decesari, Jakob Pernov, Andreas Massling, Hans-Christen Hansson, Knut von Salzen, Henrik Skov, Elisabeth Andrews, Patricia K. Quinn, Lucia M. Upchurch, Konstantinos Eleftheriadis, Rita Traversi, Stefania Gilardoni, Mauro Mazzola, James Laing, and Philip Hopke
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 3067–3096, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3067-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3067-2022, 2022
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Long-term data sets of Arctic aerosol properties from 10 stations across the Arctic provide evidence that anthropogenic influence on the Arctic atmospheric chemical composition has declined in winter, a season which is typically dominated by mid-latitude emissions. The number of significant trends in summer is smaller than in winter, and overall the pattern is ambiguous with some significant positive and negative trends. This reflects the mixed influence of natural and anthropogenic emissions.
Robin D. Lamboll, Chris D. Jones, Ragnhild B. Skeie, Stephanie Fiedler, Bjørn H. Samset, Nathan P. Gillett, Joeri Rogelj, and Piers M. Forster
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 3683–3695, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3683-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3683-2021, 2021
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Lockdowns to avoid the spread of COVID-19 have created an unprecedented reduction in human emissions. We can estimate the changes in emissions at a country level, but to make predictions about how this will affect our climate, we need more precise information about where the emissions happen. Here we combine older estimates of where emissions normally occur with very recent estimates of sector activity levels to enable different groups to make simulations of the climatic effects of lockdown.
Landon A. Rieger, Jason N. S. Cole, John C. Fyfe, Stephen Po-Chedley, Philip J. Cameron-Smith, Paul J. Durack, Nathan P. Gillett, and Qi Tang
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 4831–4843, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4831-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-4831-2020, 2020
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Recently, the stratospheric aerosol forcing dataset used as an input to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 was updated. This work explores the impact of those changes on the modelled historical climates in the CanESM5 and EAMv1 models. Temperature differences in the stratosphere shortly after the Pinatubo eruption are found to be significant, but surface temperatures and precipitation do not show a significant change.
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Short summary
The refractive index of black carbon (BCRI), which determines how much energy black carbon absorbs and scatters, is difficult to measure, and different climate models use different values. We show that varying the BCRI across commonly used values can increase absorbing aerosol optical depth by 42 % and the warming effect from interactions between black carbon and radiation by 47 %, an appreciable fraction of the overall spread between models reported in recent literature assessments.
The refractive index of black carbon (BCRI), which determines how much energy black carbon...
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