Improved Simulations of Global Black Carbon Distributions by Modifying Wet Scavenging Processes in Convective and Mixed?Phase Clouds

Idealized simulations of pyro-convective clouds

Global-mean precipitation and black carbon in AR4 simulations

[1] How much and why precipitation changes as the climate warms is uncertain, even for the global mean. In the 21st Century of the IPCC AR4 A1b forcing scenario, globalmean precipitation increase per degree warming varies among models by over a factor of three. Clear-sky atmospheric shortwave absorption change explains over half of the intermodel spread (r = 0.61) in precipitation increase. Rem...

Redistribution of trace gases by convective clouds – mixed-phase processes

The efficiency of gas transport to the free and upper troposphere in convective clouds is investigated in an axisymmetric dynamic cloud model with detailed microphysics. In particular, we examine the sensitivity of gas transport to the treatment of gas uptake by different ice hydrometeors. Two parameters are used to describe this uptake. The gas retention coefficient defines the fraction of dis...

Global soil carbon projections are improved by modelling microbial processes

Society relies on Earth system models (ESMs) to project future climate and carbon cycle feedbacks. However, the soil C response to climate change is highly uncertain in these models1,2 and they omit key biogeochemical mechanisms3–5. Specifically, the traditional approach in ESMs lacks direct microbial control over soil C dynamics6–8. Thus, we tested a new model that explicitly represents microb...

Scavenging of black carbon in mixed phase clouds at the high alpine site Jungfraujoch

1 Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland 2 Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research, 04318 Leipzig, Germany 3 School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, M60 1QD, UK 4 Institute for Atmospheric Physics, German Aerospace Centre, 82234 Wessling, Germany * now at: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate S...