Black Carbon Increases Frequency of Extreme ENSO Events
Abstract
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the leading mode of Earth’s climate variability at interannual time scales with profound ecological and societal impacts, and it is projected to intensify in many climate models as the climate warms under the forcing of increasing CO2 concentration. Since the preindustrial era, black carbon (BC) emissions have substantially increased in the Northern Hemisphere. But how BC aerosol forcing may influence the occurrence of the extreme ENSO events has rarely been investigated. In this study, using simulations of a global climate model, we show that increases in BC emissions from both the midlatitudes and Arctic weaken latitudinal temperature gradients and northward heat transport, decrease tropical energy divergence, and increase sea surface temperature over the tropical oceans, with a surprising consequential increase in the frequency of extreme ENSO events. A corollary of this study is that reducing BC emissions might serve to mitigate the possible increasing frequency of extreme ENSO events under greenhouse warming, if the modeling result can be translated into the climate in reality.
- Authors:
-
- Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
- Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, Maryland
- Physical Oceanography Laboratory/CIMST, Ocean University of China, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1573871
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1580514
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-141442
Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Climate
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Journal of Climate Journal Volume: 32 Journal Issue: 23; Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; ENSO; Climate models; Aerosol radiative effect; Primary aerosol
Citation Formats
Lou, Sijia, Yang, Yang, Wang, Hailong, Lu, Jian, Smith, Steven J., Liu, Fukai, and Rasch, Philip J. Black Carbon Increases Frequency of Extreme ENSO Events. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0549.1.
Lou, Sijia, Yang, Yang, Wang, Hailong, Lu, Jian, Smith, Steven J., Liu, Fukai, & Rasch, Philip J. Black Carbon Increases Frequency of Extreme ENSO Events. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0549.1
Lou, Sijia, Yang, Yang, Wang, Hailong, Lu, Jian, Smith, Steven J., Liu, Fukai, and Rasch, Philip J. Sun .
"Black Carbon Increases Frequency of Extreme ENSO Events". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0549.1.
@article{osti_1573871,
title = {Black Carbon Increases Frequency of Extreme ENSO Events},
author = {Lou, Sijia and Yang, Yang and Wang, Hailong and Lu, Jian and Smith, Steven J. and Liu, Fukai and Rasch, Philip J.},
abstractNote = {El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the leading mode of Earth’s climate variability at interannual time scales with profound ecological and societal impacts, and it is projected to intensify in many climate models as the climate warms under the forcing of increasing CO2 concentration. Since the preindustrial era, black carbon (BC) emissions have substantially increased in the Northern Hemisphere. But how BC aerosol forcing may influence the occurrence of the extreme ENSO events has rarely been investigated. In this study, using simulations of a global climate model, we show that increases in BC emissions from both the midlatitudes and Arctic weaken latitudinal temperature gradients and northward heat transport, decrease tropical energy divergence, and increase sea surface temperature over the tropical oceans, with a surprising consequential increase in the frequency of extreme ENSO events. A corollary of this study is that reducing BC emissions might serve to mitigate the possible increasing frequency of extreme ENSO events under greenhouse warming, if the modeling result can be translated into the climate in reality.},
doi = {10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0549.1},
journal = {Journal of Climate},
number = 23,
volume = 32,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {12}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0549.1
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