Effective radiative forcing from emissions of reactive gases and aerosols – a multi-model comparison

This paper quantifies the pre-industrial (1850) to present-day (2014) effective radiative forcing (ERF) of anthropogenic emissions of NOX, volatile organic compounds (VOCs; including CO), SO2, NH3, black carbon, organic carbon, and concentrations of methane, N2O and ozone-depleting halocarbons, using CMIP6 models. Concentration and emission changes of reactive species can cause multiple changes in the composition of radiatively active species: tropospheric ozone, stratospheric ozone, stratospheric water vapour, secondary inorganic and organic aerosol, and methane. Where possible we break down the ERFs from each emitted species into the contributions from the composition changes. The ERFs are calculated for each of the models that participated in the AerChemMIP experiments as part of the CMIP6 project, where the relevant model output was available. The 1850 to 2014 multi-model mean ERFs (± standard deviations) are −1.03 ± 0.37 W m−2 for SO2 emissions, −0.25 ± 0.09 W m−2 for organic carbon (OC), 0.15 ± 0.17 W m−2 for black carbon (BC) and −0.07 ± 0.01 W m−2 for NH3. For the combined aerosols (in the piClim-aer experiment) it is −1.01 ± 0.25 W m−2. The multi-model means for the reactive well-mixed greenhouse gases (including any effects on ozone and aerosol chemistry) are 0.67 ± 0.17 W m−2 for methane (CH4), 0.26 ± 0.07 W m−2 for nitrous oxide (N2O) and 0.12 ± 0.2 W m−2 for ozone-depleting halocarbons (HC). Emissions of the ozone precursors nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds and both together (O3) lead to ERFs of 0.14 ± 0.13, 0.09 ± 0.14 and 0.20 ± 0.07 W m−2 respectively. The differences in ERFs calculated for the different models reflect differences in the complexity of their aerosol and chemistry schemes, especially in the case of methane where tropospheric chemistry captures increased forcing from ozone production.

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Author Thornhill, Gillian D.
Collins, William J.
Kramer, Ryan J.
Olivié, Dirk
Skeie, Ragnhild B.
O'Connor, Fiona M.
Abraham, Nathan Luke
Checa-Garcia, Ramiro
Bauer, Susanne E.
Deushi, Makoto
Emmons, Louisa K.
Forster, Piers M.
Horowitz, Larry W.
Johnson, Ben
Keeble, James
Lamarque, Jean-Francois
Michou, Martine
Mills, Michael J.
Mulcahy, Jane P.
Myhre, Gunnar
Nabat, Pierre
Naik, Vaishali
Oshima, Naga
Schulz, Michael
Smith, Christopher J.
Takemura, Toshihiko
Tilmes, Simone
Wu, Tongwen
Zeng, Guang
Zhang, Jie
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2021-01-21T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:24:49.116101
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:23989
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Thornhill, Gillian D., Collins, William J., Kramer, Ryan J., Olivié, Dirk, Skeie, Ragnhild B., O'Connor, Fiona M., Abraham, Nathan Luke, Checa-Garcia, Ramiro, Bauer, Susanne E., Deushi, Makoto, Emmons, Louisa K., Forster, Piers M., Horowitz, Larry W., Johnson, Ben, Keeble, James, Lamarque, Jean-Francois, Michou, Martine, Mills, Michael J., Mulcahy, Jane P., Myhre, Gunnar, Nabat, Pierre, Naik, Vaishali, Oshima, Naga, Schulz, Michael, Smith, Christopher J., Takemura, Toshihiko, Tilmes, Simone, Wu, Tongwen, Zeng, Guang, Zhang, Jie. (2021). Effective radiative forcing from emissions of reactive gases and aerosols – a multi-model comparison. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7z03ch7. Accessed 15 February 2025.

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