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, Maria
Samset, Bjørn H.
Balkanski, Yves
Bauer, Susanne
Bellouin, Nicolas
Berntsen, Terje K.
Bian, Huisheng
Chin, Mian
Diehl, Thomas
Easter, Richard
Ghan, Steven J.
Iversen, Trond
Kirkevåg, Alf
Lamarque, Jean-François
Lin, Guangxing
Liu, Xiaohong
Luo, Gan
Myhre, Gunnar
Noije, Twan van
Penner, Joyce E.
Schulz, Michael
Seland, Øyvind
Skeie, Ragnhild B.
Stier, Philip
Takemura, Toshihiko
Tsigaridis, Kostas
Yu, Fangqun
Zhang, Kai
Zhang, Hua
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2017-10-13T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:22:54.262037
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:21100
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Sand, Maria, Samset, Bjørn H., Balkanski, Yves, Bauer, Susanne, Bellouin, Nicolas, Berntsen, Terje K., Bian, Huisheng, Chin, Mian, Diehl, Thomas, Easter, Richard, Ghan, Steven J., Iversen, Trond, Kirkevåg, Alf, Lamarque, Jean-François, Lin, Guangxing, Liu, Xiaohong, Luo, Gan, Myhre, Gunnar, Noije, Twan van, Penner, Joyce E., Schulz, Michael, Seland, Øyvind, Skeie, Ragnhild B., Stier, Philip, Takemura, Toshihiko, Tsigaridis, Kostas, Yu, Fangqun, Zhang, Kai, Zhang, Hua. (2017). Aerosols at the poles: an AeroCom Phase II multi-model evaluation. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d718392z. Accessed 19 March 2025.

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