Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion
Abstract
Global climate models (GCMs) underestimate the observed trend in tropical expansion. Recent studies partly attribute it to black carbon (BC) aerosols, which are poorly represented in GCMs. In this paper, we conduct a suite of idealized experiments with the Community Atmosphere Model version 4 coupled to a slab ocean model forced with increasing BC concentrations covering a large swath of the estimated range of current BC radiative forcing while maintaining their spatial distribution. The Northern Hemisphere (NH) tropics expand poleward nearly linearly as BC radiative forcing increases (0.7° W -1 m 2), indicating that a realistic representation of BC could reduce GCM biases. We find support for the mechanism where BC-induced midlatitude tropospheric heating shifts the maximum meridional tropospheric temperature gradient poleward resulting in tropical expansion. Finally, we also find that the NH poleward tropical edge is nearly linearly correlated with the location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which shifts northward in response to increasing BC.
- Authors:
-
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Computational Earth Sciences Group and Climate Change Science Inst.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1324138
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 42; Journal Issue: 12; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES; 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; tropical expansion; black carbon aerosol; midlatitude warming
Citation Formats
Kovilakam, Mahesh, and Mahajan, Salil. Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1002/2015GL064559.
Kovilakam, Mahesh, & Mahajan, Salil. Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064559
Kovilakam, Mahesh, and Mahajan, Salil. Tue .
"Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064559. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1324138.
@article{osti_1324138,
title = {Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion},
author = {Kovilakam, Mahesh and Mahajan, Salil},
abstractNote = {Global climate models (GCMs) underestimate the observed trend in tropical expansion. Recent studies partly attribute it to black carbon (BC) aerosols, which are poorly represented in GCMs. In this paper, we conduct a suite of idealized experiments with the Community Atmosphere Model version 4 coupled to a slab ocean model forced with increasing BC concentrations covering a large swath of the estimated range of current BC radiative forcing while maintaining their spatial distribution. The Northern Hemisphere (NH) tropics expand poleward nearly linearly as BC radiative forcing increases (0.7° W-1 m2), indicating that a realistic representation of BC could reduce GCM biases. We find support for the mechanism where BC-induced midlatitude tropospheric heating shifts the maximum meridional tropospheric temperature gradient poleward resulting in tropical expansion. Finally, we also find that the NH poleward tropical edge is nearly linearly correlated with the location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which shifts northward in response to increasing BC.},
doi = {10.1002/2015GL064559},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1324138},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
issn = {0094-8276},
number = 12,
volume = 42,
place = {United States},
year = {2015},
month = {6}
}
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Cited by: 9 works
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