Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on Global Energy Budget and Climate: The Role of Climate Feedbacks
Abstract
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.more »
- Authors:
-
[3];
[3];
- Nanjing Univ. (China). China Meteorological Administration, Nanjing Univ. Joint Lab. for Climate Prediction Studies
- Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences
- Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); National Key Research and Development Program of China
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1668339
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-150737
Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830; 2017YFA0604002; 2018YFC1506001; 41621005; 41505062; 41330420
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Climate
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 33; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; climate change; radiative forcing; aerosol radiative effect; aerosol-cloud interaction; air-sea interaction; biomass burning
Citation Formats
Jiang, Yiquan, Yang, Xiu-Qun, Liu, Xiaohong, Qian, Yun, Zhang, Kai, Wang, Minghuai, Li, Fang, Wang, Yong, and Lu, Zheng. Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on Global Energy Budget and Climate: The Role of Climate Feedbacks. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1175/jcli-d-19-0572.1.
Jiang, Yiquan, Yang, Xiu-Qun, Liu, Xiaohong, Qian, Yun, Zhang, Kai, Wang, Minghuai, Li, Fang, Wang, Yong, & Lu, Zheng. Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on Global Energy Budget and Climate: The Role of Climate Feedbacks. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-19-0572.1
Jiang, Yiquan, Yang, Xiu-Qun, Liu, Xiaohong, Qian, Yun, Zhang, Kai, Wang, Minghuai, Li, Fang, Wang, Yong, and Lu, Zheng. Mon .
"Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on Global Energy Budget and Climate: The Role of Climate Feedbacks". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-19-0572.1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1668339.
@article{osti_1668339,
title = {Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on Global Energy Budget and Climate: The Role of Climate Feedbacks},
author = {Jiang, Yiquan and Yang, Xiu-Qun and Liu, Xiaohong and Qian, Yun and Zhang, Kai and Wang, Minghuai and Li, Fang and Wang, Yong and Lu, Zheng},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1175/jcli-d-19-0572.1},
journal = {Journal of Climate},
number = 8,
volume = 33,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Mar 23 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Mon Mar 23 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journalFigures / Tables:
TABLE 1: Numerical experiments and associated fire aerosol emissions in each experiment.
Figures / Tables found in this record: