Uncertainty in Observational Estimates of the Aerosol Direct Radiative Effect and Forcing

Effect of clouds on direct aerosol radiative forcing of climate

The effect of a cloud layer on top-of-atmosphere (TOA) aerosol radiative forcing is examined by means of a one-dimensional vertical column simulation. To span the range between nonabsorbing and strongly absorbing particles, (NH4)2SO4 and soot aerosols are considered individually and in internal and external mixtures. For a cloud layer embedded within an aerosol layer it is shown that direct aer...

Direct radiative forcing of anthropogenic organic aerosol

[1] This study simulates the direct radiative forcing of organic aerosol using the GFDL AM2 GCM. The aerosol climatology is provided by the MOZART chemical transport model (CTM). The approach to calculating aerosol optical properties explicitly considers relative humidity–dependent hygroscopic growth by employing a functional group– based thermodynamic model, and makes use of the size distribut...

Spatially refined aerosol direct radiative forcing efficiencies.

Global aerosol direct radiative forcing (DRF) is an important metric for assessing potential climate impacts of future emissions changes. However, the radiative consequences of emissions perturbations are not readily quantified nor well understood at the level of detail necessary to assess realistic policy options. To address this challenge, here we show how adjoint model sensitivities can be u...

Direct SW aerosol radiative forcing over Portugal

The estimation of radiative forcing due to desert dust and forest fires aerosols is a very important issue since these particles are very efficient at scattering and absorbing both short and longwave radiation. In this work, the evaluation of the aerosol radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere over the south of Portugal is made, particularly in 5 the regions ofÉvora and of Cabo da Roca. ...

Aerosol Direct Radiative Forcing: A Review