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Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on Global Energy Budget and Climate: The Role of Climate Feedbacks

Journal Article · · Journal of Climate
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [5];  [2]
  1. Nanjing Univ. (China). China Meteorological Administration, Nanjing Univ. Joint Lab. for Climate Prediction Studies
  2. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
  3. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  4. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences
  5. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
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Aerosols emitted from wildfires could significantly affect global climate through perturbing global radiation balance. In this study, the Community Earth System Model with prescribed daily fire aerosol emissions is used to investigate fire aerosols’ impacts on global climate with emphasis on the role of climate feedbacks. The total global fire aerosol radiative effect (RE) is estimated to be -0.78 ± 0.29 W m-2, which is mostly from shortwave RE due to aerosol–cloud interactions (REaci; -0.70 ± 0.20 W m-2). The associated global annual-mean surface air temperature (SAT) change ΔT is -0.64 ± 0.16 K with the largest reduction in the Arctic regions where the shortwave REaci is strong. Associated with the cooling, the Arctic sea ice is increased, which acts to reamplify the Arctic cooling through a positive ice-albedo feedback. The fast response (irrelevant to ΔT) tends to decrease surface latent heat flux into atmosphere in the tropics to balance strong atmospheric fire black carbon absorption, which reduces the precipitation in the tropical land regions (southern Africa and South America). The climate feedback processes (associated with ΔT) lead to a significant surface latent heat flux reduction over global ocean areas, which could explain most (~80%) of the global precipitation reduction. The precipitation significantly decreases in deep tropical regions (5°N) but increases in the Southern Hemisphere tropical ocean, which is associated with the southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone and the weakening of Southern Hemisphere Hadley cell. Such changes could partly compensate the interhemispheric temperature asymmetry induced by boreal forest fire aerosol indirect effects, through intensifying the cross-equator atmospheric heat transport.
Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Key R&D Program of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC); USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1668339
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA--150737
Journal Information:
Journal of Climate, Journal Name: Journal of Climate Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 33; ISSN 0894-8755
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
aerosol radiative effect
aerosol-cloud interaction
air-sea interaction
biomass burning
climate change
radiative forcing