Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific assessment

Black carbon aerosol plays a unique and important role in Earth's climate system. Black carbon is a type of carbonaceous material with a unique combination of physical properties. This assessment provides an evaluation of black‐carbon climate forcing that is comprehensive in its inclusion of al...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of geophysical research. Atmospheres 2013-06, Vol.118 (11), p.5380-5552
Main Authors: Bond, T. C., Doherty, S. J., Fahey, D. W., Forster, P. M., Berntsen, T., DeAngelo, B. J., Flanner, M. G., Ghan, S., Kärcher, B., Koch, D., Kinne, S., Kondo, Y., Quinn, P. K., Sarofim, M. C., Schultz, M. G., Schulz, M., Venkataraman, C., Zhang, H., Zhang, S., Bellouin, N., Guttikunda, S. K., Hopke, P. K., Jacobson, M. Z., Kaiser, J. W., Klimont, Z., Lohmann, U., Schwarz, J. P., Shindell, D., Storelvmo, T., Warren, S. G., Zender, C. S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absorption
aerosol
Aerosol-cloud interactions
Assessments
Atmospheric absorption
Atmospheric models
Biofuels
Biomass burning
Black carbon
Black carbon aerosols
Burning
Carbon
Carbon dioxide
Carbon emissions
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide emissions
Carbon sources
Climate
Climate effects
climate forcing
Climate models
Climate system
Cloud-climate relationships
Clouds
Combustion
Cooling
Cooling effects
Costs
Cryosphere
Diesel engines
Earth
Earth, ocean, space
Emissions
Emittance
Environmental assessment
Estimates
Evaluation
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Feasibility
Feasibility studies
Fossil fuels
Frameworks
Fuels
Future climates
Geophysics
Ice clouds
Interactions
Internal combustion engines
Meteorology
Mitigation
Open burning
Organic carbon
Organic matter
Physical properties
Policies
Pollution sources
Probability theory
Radiative forcing
Scaling
Snow and ice
Solid fuels
Sorption
Species
Sulfur
Sulfur dioxide
Sulphur
Transportation
Uncertainty
Warm climates
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Description
Summary:Black carbon aerosol plays a unique and important role in Earth's climate system. Black carbon is a type of carbonaceous material with a unique combination of physical properties. This assessment provides an evaluation of black‐carbon climate forcing that is comprehensive in its inclusion of all known and relevant processes and that is quantitative in providing best estimates and uncertainties of the main forcing terms: direct solar absorption; influence on liquid, mixed phase, and ice clouds; and deposition on snow and ice. These effects are calculated with climate models, but when possible, they are evaluated with both microphysical measurements and field observations. Predominant sources are combustion related, namely, fossil fuels for transportation, solid fuels for industrial and residential uses, and open burning of biomass. Total global emissions of black carbon using bottom‐up inventory methods are 7500 Gg yr−1 in the year 2000 with an uncertainty range of 2000 to 29000. However, global atmospheric absorption attributable to black carbon is too low in many models and should be increased by a factor of almost 3. After this scaling, the best estimate for the industrial‐era (1750 to 2005) direct radiative forcing of atmospheric black carbon is +0.71 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of (+0.08, +1.27) W m−2. Total direct forcing by all black carbon sources, without subtracting the preindustrial background, is estimated as +0.88 (+0.17, +1.48) W m−2. Direct radiative forcing alone does not capture important rapid adjustment mechanisms. A framework is described and used for quantifying climate forcings, including rapid adjustments. The best estimate of industrial‐era climate forcing of black carbon through all forcing mechanisms, including clouds and cryosphere forcing, is +1.1 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of +0.17 to +2.1 W m−2. Thus, there is a very high probability that black carbon emissions, independent of co‐emitted species, have a positive forcing and warm the climate. We estimate that black carbon, with a total climate forcing of +1.1 W m−2, is the second most important human emission in terms of its climate forcing in the present‐day atmosphere; only carbon dioxide is estimated to have a greater forcing. Sources that emit black carbon also emit other short‐lived species that may either cool or warm climate. Climate forcings from co‐emitted species are estimated and used in the framework described herein. When the principal effects of short‐
ISSN:2169-897X
2169-8996
DOI:10.1002/jgrd.50171