Aerosol-Cloud-Rainfall interactions over Emission Source regions (ACRES)
Final Report Abstract
The aim of the present study was to exploit the increasing length of the satellite record for aerosol and cloud properties, and the radiation budget, to investigate trends in aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions over four major aerosol source regions (EUR, NAM, India and China) that witnessed strong trends in anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the last two decades. Comparisons revealed that model-simulated AOD and CDNC trends match well the satellite observations in Europe, eastern North America, Northern China, and India, while model biases are visible in western North America and southern China. In several aerosol regions, CMIP6 AOD trends are more consistent with the satellite data than CMIP5, pointing to improvements in the aerosol emission data. Trends in short-wave cloud radiative effects in the models match those in the satellite retrievals in some regions surprisingly well, but this result is due to compensating errors in the patterns of cloud fraction and liquid water path changes. The extreme precipitation trends are estimated over South Asia regions. The results fed into the upcoming IPCC 6 th Assessment Report.
Publications
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The importance of the representation of air pollution emissions for the modeled distribution and radiative effects of black carbon in the Arctic, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 11159–11183, 2019
Schacht, J., Heinold, B., Quaas, J., Backman, J., Cherian, R., Ehrlich, A., Herber, A., Huang, W. T. K., Kondo, Y., Massling, A., Sinha, P. R., Weinzierl, B., Zanatta, M., and Tegen, I.
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Trends in AOD, clouds and cloud radiative effects in satellite data and CMIP5 and CMIP6 model simulations over aerosol source regions, Geophys. Res. Lett., 47, e2020GL087132, 2020
Cherian, R., and J. Quaas
