Confronting the “Indian summer monsoon response to black carbon aerosol” with the uncertainty in its radiative forcing and beyond
Abstract
While black carbon aerosols (BC) are believed to modulate the Indian monsoons, the radiative forcing estimate of BC suffers from large uncertainties globally. In this paper, we analyze a suite of idealized experiments forced with a range of BC concentrations that span a large swath of the latest estimates of its global radiative forcing. Within those bounds of uncertainty, summer precipitation over the Indian region increases nearly linearly with the increase in BC burden. The linearity holds even as the BC concentration is increased to levels resembling those hypothesized in nuclear winter scenarios, despite large surface cooling over India and adjoining regions. The enhanced monsoonal circulation is associated with a linear increase in the large-scale meridional tropospheric temperature gradient. The precipitable water over the region also increases linearly with an increase in BC burden, due to increased moisture transport from the Arabian sea to the land areas. The wide range of Indian monsoon response elicited in these experiments emphasizes the need to reduce the uncertainty in BC estimates to accurately quantify their role in modulating the Indian monsoons. Finally, the increase in monsoonal circulation in response to large BC concentrations contrasts earlier findings that the Indian summer monsoon may breakmore »
- Authors:
-
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Computational Earth Sciences Group. 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:
- 1327666
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 121; Journal Issue: 13; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; monsoon; uncertainty in black carbon aerosol; low-level jet; EHP mechanism
Citation Formats
Kovilakam, Mahesh, and Mahajan, Salil. Confronting the “Indian summer monsoon response to black carbon aerosol” with the uncertainty in its radiative forcing and beyond. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1002/2016JD024866.
Kovilakam, Mahesh, & Mahajan, Salil. Confronting the “Indian summer monsoon response to black carbon aerosol” with the uncertainty in its radiative forcing and beyond. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD024866
Kovilakam, Mahesh, and Mahajan, Salil. Tue .
"Confronting the “Indian summer monsoon response to black carbon aerosol” with the uncertainty in its radiative forcing and beyond". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD024866. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1327666.
@article{osti_1327666,
title = {Confronting the “Indian summer monsoon response to black carbon aerosol” with the uncertainty in its radiative forcing and beyond},
author = {Kovilakam, Mahesh and Mahajan, Salil},
abstractNote = {While black carbon aerosols (BC) are believed to modulate the Indian monsoons, the radiative forcing estimate of BC suffers from large uncertainties globally. In this paper, we analyze a suite of idealized experiments forced with a range of BC concentrations that span a large swath of the latest estimates of its global radiative forcing. Within those bounds of uncertainty, summer precipitation over the Indian region increases nearly linearly with the increase in BC burden. The linearity holds even as the BC concentration is increased to levels resembling those hypothesized in nuclear winter scenarios, despite large surface cooling over India and adjoining regions. The enhanced monsoonal circulation is associated with a linear increase in the large-scale meridional tropospheric temperature gradient. The precipitable water over the region also increases linearly with an increase in BC burden, due to increased moisture transport from the Arabian sea to the land areas. The wide range of Indian monsoon response elicited in these experiments emphasizes the need to reduce the uncertainty in BC estimates to accurately quantify their role in modulating the Indian monsoons. Finally, the increase in monsoonal circulation in response to large BC concentrations contrasts earlier findings that the Indian summer monsoon may break down following a nuclear war.},
doi = {10.1002/2016JD024866},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres},
number = 13,
volume = 121,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jun 28 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Tue Jun 28 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 14 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
The vertical distribution of black carbon in CMIP5 models: Comparison to observations and the importance of convective transport
journal, April 2014
- Allen, Robert J.; Landuyt, William
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 119, Issue 8
Recent Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion primarily driven by black carbon and tropospheric ozone
journal, May 2012
- Allen, Robert J.; Sherwood, Steven C.; Norris, Joel R.
- Nature, Vol. 485, Issue 7398
Solar absorption by elemental and brown carbon determined from spectral observations
journal, October 2012
- Bahadur, R.; Praveen, P. S.; Xu, Y.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 109, Issue 43
Anthropogenic Aerosols and the Weakening of the South Asian Summer Monsoon
journal, September 2011
- Bollasina, M. A.; Ming, Y.; Ramaswamy, V.
- Science, Vol. 334, Issue 6055
Contribution of local and remote anthropogenic aerosols to the twentieth century weakening of the South Asian Monsoon: AEROSOLS AND SOUTH ASIAN MONSOON
journal, January 2014
- Bollasina, Massimo A.; Ming, Yi; Ramaswamy, V.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 41, Issue 2
Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific assessment: BLACK CARBON IN THE CLIMATE SYSTEM
journal, June 2013
- Bond, T. C.; Doherty, S. J.; Fahey, D. W.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 118, Issue 11
Near-linear response of mean monsoon strength to a broad range of radiative forcings
journal, January 2016
- Boos, William R.; Storelvmo, Trude
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 6
The climatic effects of large injections of atmospheric smoke and dust: A study of climate feedback mechanisms with one- and three-dimensional climate models
journal, January 1985
- Cess, R. D.; Potter, G. L.; Ghan, S. J.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 90, Issue D7
Weakening of North Indian SST Gradients and the Monsoon Rainfall in India and the Sahel
journal, May 2006
- Chung, Chul Eddy; Ramanathan, V.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 19, Issue 10
The impact of Asian and non-Asian anthropogenic aerosols on 20th century Asian summer monsoon: ASIAN MONSOON AND AEROSOLS
journal, June 2011
- Cowan, T.; Cai, W.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, Issue 11
Indian monsoon and the elevated‐heat‐pump mechanism in a coupled aerosol‐climate model
journal, September 2015
- D'Errico, Miriam; Cagnazzo, Chiara; Fogli, Pier Giuseppe
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 120, Issue 17
Do climate models reproduce observed solar dimming and brightening over China and Japan?
journal, January 2010
- Dwyer, John G.; Norris, Joel R.; Ruckstuhl, Christian
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 115
A spectral transform dynamical core option within the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM4)
journal, September 2014
- Evans, Katherine J.; Mahajan, Salil; Branstetter, Marcia
- Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Vol. 6, Issue 3
T HE I NDIAN M ONSOON AND I TS V ARIABILITY
journal, May 2003
- Gadgil, Sulochana
- Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Vol. 31, Issue 1
Climate response of the South Asian monsoon system to anthropogenic aerosols: CLIMATE EFFECTS OF ANTHROPOGENIC AEROSOL
journal, July 2012
- Ganguly, Dilip; Rasch, Philip J.; Wang, Hailong
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 117, Issue D13
Chronic climatic effects of nuclear war
journal, January 1991
- Ghan, Stevem J.
- Atmospheric Environment. Part A. General Topics, Vol. 25, Issue 11
ENSO control on the south Asian monsoon through the length of the rainy season: ENSO CONTROL ON RAINY SEASON
journal, September 2005
- Goswami, B. N.; Xavier, Prince K.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, Issue 18
Global Indirect Radiative Forcing Caused by Aerosols
book, January 2009
- Haywood, Jim; Donner, Leo; Jones, Andy
- Clouds in the Perturbed Climate System: Their Relationship to Energy Balance, Atmospheric Dynamics, and Precipitation
Amplification of ENSO effects on Indian summer monsoon by absorbing aerosols
journal, July 2015
- Kim, Maeng-Ki; Lau, William K. M.; Kim, Kyu-Myong
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 46, Issue 7-8
Evaluation of black carbon estimations in global aerosol models
journal, January 2009
- Koch, D.; Schulz, M.; Kinne, S.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 9, Issue 22
Black carbon aerosol-induced Northern Hemisphere tropical expansion: BC AEROSOL-INDUCED TROPICAL EXPANSION
journal, June 2015
- Kovilakam, Mahesh; Mahajan, Salil
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 42, Issue 12
Historical (1850–2000) gridded anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions of reactive gases and aerosols: methodology and application
journal, January 2010
- Lamarque, J. -F.; Bond, T. C.; Eyring, V.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 10, Issue 15
Asian summer monsoon anomalies induced by aerosol direct forcing: the role of the Tibetan Plateau
journal, February 2006
- Lau, K. M.; Kim, M. K.; Kim, K. M.
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 26, Issue 7-8
The Joint Aerosol–Monsoon Experiment: A New Challenge for Monsoon Climate Research
journal, March 2008
- Lau, K. -M.; Ramanathan, V.; Wu, G. -X.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 89, Issue 3
Observational relationships between aerosol and Asian monsoon rainfall, and circulation
journal, January 2006
- Lau, K. -M.; Kim, K. -M.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, Issue 21
Can aerosols spin down the water cycle in a warmer and moister world?: GLOBAL WARMING, AEROSOL AND WATER CYCLE
journal, March 2004
- Liepert, Beate G.; Feichter, Johann; Lohmann, Ulrike
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 31, Issue 6
Total aerosol effect: radiative forcing or radiative flux perturbation?
journal, January 2010
- Lohmann, U.; Rotstayn, L.; Storelvmo, T.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 10, Issue 7
Interannual Tropospheric Aerosol Variability in the Late Twentieth Century and Its Impact on Tropical Atlantic and West African Climate by Direct and Semidirect Effects
journal, December 2012
- Mahajan, Salil; Evans, Katherine J.; Truesdale, John E.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 25, Issue 23
Linearity of Climate Response to Increases in Black Carbon Aerosols
journal, October 2013
- Mahajan, Salil; Evans, Katherine J.; Hack, James J.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 26, Issue 20
The Tropospheric Biennial Oscillation and Asian–Australian Monsoon Rainfall
journal, April 2002
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Arblaster, Julie M.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 15, Issue 7
Effects of Black Carbon Aerosols on the Indian Monsoon
journal, June 2008
- Meehl, Gerald A.; Arblaster, Julie M.; Collins, William D.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 21, Issue 12
Climate Effects of Black Carbon Aerosols in China and India
journal, September 2002
- Menon, S.
- Science, Vol. 297, Issue 5590
Nonlinear Climate and Hydrological Responses to Aerosol Effects
journal, March 2009
- Ming, Yi; Ramaswamy, V.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 22, Issue 6
Two opposing effects of absorbing aerosols on global-mean precipitation: EFFECTS OF ABSORBING AEROSOLS ON PRECIPITATION
journal, July 2010
- Ming, Yi; Ramaswamy, V.; Persad, Geeta
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 37, Issue 13
Radiative forcing of the direct aerosol effect from AeroCom Phase II simulations
journal, January 2013
- Myhre, G.; Samset, B. H.; Schulz, M.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 4
“Elevated heat pump” hypothesis for the aerosol-monsoon hydroclimate link: “Grounded” in observations?
journal, January 2010
- Nigam, Sumant; Bollasina, Massimo
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 115, Issue D16
Reply to comment by K. M. Lau and K. M. Kim on “‘Elevated heat pump’ hypothesis for the aerosol–monsoon hydroclimate link: ‘Grounded’ in observations?”
journal, January 2011
- Nigam, Sumant; Bollasina, Massimo
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 116, Issue D7
Contrasting Climate Responses to the Scattering and Absorbing Features of Anthropogenic Aerosol Forcings
journal, July 2014
- Ocko, Ilissa B.; Ramaswamy, V.; Ming, Yi
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 27, Issue 14
Markedly enhanced absorption and direct radiative forcing of black carbon under polluted urban environments
journal, March 2016
- Peng, Jianfei; Hu, Min; Guo, Song
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 16
Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon
journal, March 2008
- Ramanathan, V.; Carmichael, G.
- Nature Geoscience, Vol. 1, Issue 4
Atmospheric brown clouds: Impacts on South Asian climate and hydrological cycle
journal, March 2005
- Ramanathan, V.; Chung, C.; Kim, D.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 102, Issue 15
Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences: NUCLEAR WINTER REVISITED
journal, July 2007
- Robock, Alan; Oman, Luke; Stenchikov, Georgiy L.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 112, Issue D13
The effect of absorbing aerosols on Indian monsoon circulation and rainfall: A review
journal, October 2015
- Sanap, S. D.; Pandithurai, G.
- Atmospheric Research, Vol. 164-165
A Standardized Global Climate Model Study Showing Unique Properties for the Climate Response to Black Carbon Aerosols
journal, March 2015
- Sand, M.; Iversen, T.; Bohlinger, P.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 28, Issue 6
Global wildland fire emissions from 1960 to 2000: GLOBAL FIRE EMISSIONS 1960-2000
journal, April 2008
- Schultz, Martin G.; Heil, Angelika; Hoelzemann, Judith J.
- Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 22, Issue 2
Assessment of the global impact of aerosols on tropospheric oxidants
journal, January 2005
- Tie, Xuexi
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 110, Issue D3
Climate change and the South Asian summer monsoon
journal, June 2012
- Turner, Andrew G.; Annamalai, H.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 2, Issue 8
Using idealized snow forcing to test teleconnections with the Indian summer monsoon in the Hadley Centre GCM
journal, April 2010
- Turner, A. G.; Slingo, J. M.
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 36, Issue 9-10
Impact of anthropogenic aerosols on Indian summer monsoon
journal, January 2009
- Wang, Chien; Kim, Dongchul; Ekman, Annica M. L.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 36, Issue 21
Monsoons: Processes, predictability, and the prospects for prediction
journal, June 1998
- Webster, P. J.; Magaña, V. O.; Palmer, T. N.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, Vol. 103, Issue C7
Investigation of the "elevated heat pump" hypothesis of the Asian monsoon using satellite observations
journal, January 2014
- Wonsick, M. M.; Pinker, R. T.; Ma, Y.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 16
An objective definition of the Indian summer monsoon season and a new perspective on the ENSO–monsoon relationship
journal, January 2007
- Xavier, Prince K.; Marzin, Charline; Goswami, B. N.
- Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 133, Issue 624
Observed high-altitude warming and snow cover retreat over Tibet and the Himalayas enhanced by black carbon aerosols
journal, January 2016
- Xu, Y.; Ramanathan, V.; Washington, W. M.
- Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 16, Issue 3
Seasonal Heating of the Tibetan Plateau and Its Effects on the Evolution of the Asian Summer Monsoon [チベット高原における加熱量の季節変化とその夏季アジアモンスーンに及ぼす影響]
journal, January 1992
- Yanai, Michio; Li, Chengfeng; Song, Zhengshan
- Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan. Ser. II, Vol. 70, Issue 1B
Equilibrium Response of an Atmosphere–Mixed Layer Ocean Model to Different Radiative Forcing Agents: Global and Zonal Mean Response
journal, September 2008
- Yoshimori, Masakazu; Broccoli, Anthony J.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 21, Issue 17
Works referencing / citing this record:
Climate response of the south Asian monsoon system to West Asia, Tibetan Plateau and local dust emissions
journal, September 2019
- Singh, Charu; Ganguly, Dilip; Sharma, Puneet
- Climate Dynamics, Vol. 53, Issue 9-10
Re-examining tropical expansion
journal, August 2018
- Staten, Paul W.; Lu, Jian; Grise, Kevin M.
- Nature Climate Change, Vol. 8, Issue 9