Aerosols at the poles: an AeroCom Phase II multi-model evaluation

Atmospheric aerosols from anthropogenic and natural sources reach the polar regions through long-range transport and affect the local radiation balance. Such transport is, however, poorly constrained in present-day global climate models, and few multi-model evaluations of polar anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing exist. Here we compare the aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm from simulations with 16 global aerosol models from the AeroCom Phase II model intercomparison project with available observations at both poles. We show that the annual mean multi-model median is representative of the observations in Arctic, but that the intermodel spread is large. We also document the geographical distribution and seasonal cycle of the AOD for the individual aerosol species: black carbon (BC) from fossil fuel and biomass burning, sulfate, organic aerosols (OAs), dust, and sea-salt. For a subset of models that represent nitrate and secondary organic aerosols (SOAs), we document the role of these aerosols at high latitudes.

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Author Sand, M.
Samset, B. H.
Balkanski, Y.
Bauer, S.
Bellouin, N.
Berntsen, T. K.
Bian, H.
Chin, M.
Diehl, T.
Easter, R.
Ghan, S. J.
Iversen, T.
Kirkevåg, A.
Lamarque, Jean-François
Lin, G.
Liu, X.
Luo, G.
Myhre, G.
Noije, T. v.
Penner, J. E.
Schulz, M.
Seland, Ø.
Skeie, R. B.
Stier, P.
Takemura, T.
Tsigaridis, K.
Yu, F.
Zhang, K.
Zhang, H.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2017-10-13T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-11T19:45:13.433392
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:21100
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Sand, M., Samset, B. H., Balkanski, Y., Bauer, S., Bellouin, N., Berntsen, T. K., Bian, H., Chin, M., Diehl, T., Easter, R., Ghan, S. J., Iversen, T., Kirkevåg, A., Lamarque, Jean-François, Lin, G., Liu, X., Luo, G., Myhre, G., Noije, T. v., Penner, J. E., Schulz, M., Seland, Ø., Skeie, R. B., Stier, P., Takemura, T., Tsigaridis, K., Yu, F., Zhang, K., Zhang, H.. (2017). Aerosols at the poles: an AeroCom Phase II multi-model evaluation. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d718392z. Accessed 12 November 2025.

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