Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion

Kovilakam, Mahesh; Mahajan, Salil

doi:10.1002/2015GL064559

Title: Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion

Journal Article · Tue Jun 23 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Geophysical Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064559· OSTI ID:1324138

Kovilakam, Mahesh ^[1]; Mahajan, Salil ^[1]

Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Computational Earth Sciences Group and Climate Change Science Inst.

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.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1324138

Journal Information:: Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 42, Issue 12; ISSN 0094-8276

Publisher:: American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 28 works

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58 GEOSCIENCES
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
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