The Role of Aerosols in Climate

Change
Eleanor J. Highwood
Department of Meteorology,

With thanks to all the IPCC scientists, Keith Shine (Reading)

and James Haywood (Met. Office)
 Outline
• What are aerosols?
• Importance in present day atmosphere
• Estimates of past climate impact
• Uncertainties
• Estimates of future changes
• What next?
 What are aerosols?
• Small particles or droplets suspended in the
atmosphere
• Radius is 0.01 to 10 microns
• Many different types and sources
• Natural and man-made sources
• Important for both present day climate and
climate change
 Sources - Natural
• sea salt
• volcanic aerosols
• mineral dust
• Biomass burning
 Sources - Man-made
• Fossil fuel burning
(produces several
different types)
• Biomass burning
• Mineral dust
 Importance: Direct solar effect
• Aerosols scatter and absorb solar radiation

No aerosol Scattering aerosol Absorbing aerosol

 Importance: Direct terrestrial
effect
• Large aerosols (e.g. dust or sulphuric acid
in the stratosphere) behave like greenhouse
gases.

No aerosol: ground emits to Aerosol absorbs radiation from

space ground and re-emits a smaller
amount up and down
 Importance: Indirect effects
• Some aerosols can alter the properties of
clouds, changing their reflectivity or
lifetime
• Some aerosols can allow chemical reactions
between atmospheric constituents to take
place very rapidly
 Measuring aerosol effects on
climate
• Measure effect on radiation at top of
atmosphere and surface.
• “Radiative effect” : effect of having aerosol
in the present day atmosphere
• “Radiative forcing”: effect of changes in
aerosol on radiation budget over a given
period of time
 e.g. seasalt

GCM(no aerosols) - ERBE GCM (aerosols) - ERBE

GCM (Aerosols + sea salt) - ERBE

e.g. radiative effect of Saharan
dust outbreaks

Figure courtesy of
SeaWiFs and OrbiImage
 The solar radiative
effect of Saharan dust
can be very large -
measurements from
SHADE on 25th
September 2000
between Sal and
Dakar show:
3 times more solar
radiation being
scattered back to
space than in clear sky
(so a big reduction in
the amount of
radiation that reaches
the surface).
Figure courtesy of J.M. Haywood, Met. Office
Dust also affects our knowledge of other climate variables like
sea surface temperature because it absorbs outgoing terrestrial
radiation.

AVHRR Ch5

AVHRR Ch4

Figure courtesy of J.M Haywood, Met. Office

 Change in SST (K) from AVHRR data when dust is present
+2. September 2000.
4
The SST anomaly over the Cape Verde Islands reaches -3.6K.
+1.
8
+1.
2
+0.
6
0
-0.6
-1.2
-1.8
-2.4
-3.0
-3.6 Figure courtesy of J.M. Haywood, Met. Office
Estimating climate change due to
changes in aerosols

• Emission sources and time history

• Chemistry and transport model
• Radiation code
• Climate model
 Radiative forcing
Global and annual mean radiative forcing can
be related to a global and annual mean
change in surface temperature using:

T = F
e.g. F over past 250 years

From IPCC TAR (2001)

 Greenhouse gases Sulphates

From Shine and

Dust Indirect Forster, 1999
 Summary of issues
• Aerosols all much more uncertain than
greenhouse gases
• Can’t add up aerosols to cancel out
greenhouse gases
• Total aerosol forcing is unlikely to be a linear
combination of individual contributions
• Indirect is holding us up.
 What do we need to know about
aerosols?
5 key parameters to give us radiative forcing

– mass light scattering efficiency

– dependence of scattering on relative humidity
– Single scattering albedo (absorption vs
scattering)
– Asymmetry parameter
– change in mass burden over time
 Distribution Optical properties

Emissions Uncertainties Chemical

Processing composition
Chemistry Mixing
Transport Size
Background Distribution
Natural
aerosols
Uncertainty
in forcing
Other components

CLOUDS
Relative Wavelengths
humidity Transfer
Surface scheme
albedo Radiation code
 Distribution: sulphates
• Formed from gases SO2 (from fossil fuel or
volcanoes) and DMS (from ocean algae)
Distribution: carbonaceous from
anthropogenic sources
• Fossil fuel burning
• Inventories have an uncertainty of a factor
of 2.
Distributions: Biomass burning
•Some biomass burning is natural.
•Episodic and regional in nature
 Distribution: Mineral dust
50% of dust burden due to anthropogenic
sources due to land use change, overgrazing
etc.
 Past Trends

From ice cores: very uncertain.

(From IPCC 2001)
 1st indirect effect
Increase in aerosol

Increase in cloud
droplet number

Change in
reflectivity
(albedo)
From Brenguier et al (2000)
 2nd indirect effect
• Aerosols affect precipitation efficiency and
therefore cloud lifetime.
• Also affect cloud reflectivity?
 Semi-direct effect
Aerosol such as black carbon absorbs solar
radiation

Layer heats up

Cloud burns off or atmosphere is stabilised
and cloud prevented from forming.
 Distribution Optical properties

Emissions Uncertainties Chemical

Processing composition
Chemistry Mixing
Transport Size
Background Distribution
Natural
aerosols
Uncertainty
in forcing
Other components Climate
response?

CLOUDS
Relative Wavelengths
humidity Transfer
Surface scheme
albedo Radiation code
 Climate response 1
Is climate
Climate sensitivity (Hansen et al 1997)

5
response to
0
2
changes in
So So 3
1.
0 5 .0 .8
5

aerosol the
-5 CO O
= 0.8 =1 0
2x % % = w =
+2 -2 .w .w T. w
S S T.
Sensitivity

-10

-15 same as for

-20

-25
changes in CO2
-30
or solar
constant?
Fixed cloud All feedbacks

Adapted from Hansen (1997)

Climate response 2
Reader and Boer
(1998): large scale
responses
surprisingly similar
 Modelling climate change over
past 250 years
No aerosol + aerosol
Global Mean Temperature (Anomaly from 1961-1990) Global Mean Temperature (Anomaly from 1961-1990)
1.50 1.20

1.00

1.00
0.80

0.60
0.50
Temp Anomaly (deg C)

Temp Anomaly (deg C)

0.40

0.00 0.20
1850
1855
1860
1865
1870
1875
1880
1885

1890

1895
1900

1905

1910
1915

1920

1925
1930

1935

1940
1945

1950

1955
1960

1965

1970
1975

1980

1985
1990
1995
0.00

1850

1855

1860

1865

1870

1875

1880

1885

1890

1895

1900

1905

1910

1915

1920

1925

1930

1935

1940

1945

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995
-0.50
-0.20

-0.40
-1.00
-0.60

-1.50 -0.80
Year Year

Pink - observations, blue - model

Future changes in aerosols

From IPCC (2001)

 Future areas of research
• Mixing of aerosol types
• Remote sensing of aerosol properties and amount
using satellites, combination with in-situ data
• Long term and consistent modelling of aerosol profiles
across globe
• Regional climate modelling
• Indirect effect and semi-direct effect
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of
one’s ignorance”

Confucius