Air quality and climate responses to anthropogenic black carbon emission changes from East Asia, North America and Europe

Abstract

East Asia, North America and Europe are the world largest emitters of anthropogenic black carbon (BC). In this study, the role of each region's anthropogenic BC emissions on domestic air quality and climate is investigated. A ten-year six-member parallel simulation (i.e., with anthropogenic emissions in each region reduced by 0%, 50% or 100%, or increased by 200%, 500% or 1000%) is conducted based on the state-of-the-art Community Earth System Model (CESM). Linearity of the emission-response relationship is examined for a variety of air quality and climate indicators. Generally, a change in BC emissions tend to linearly influence BC concentrations over both source and nearby downwind regions even taking into account the effect of BC-induced climate perturbations. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) and the net radiative flux perturbation at top of atmosphere (TOA) tend to preserve a similar linear relationship to local BC emission changes, with a robust signal confined only to the source areas. However, the response of temperature in most places is inconsistent to BC emission changes. Though the presence of BC in the atmosphere absorbs solar and terrestrial radiation which has a tendency to warm the atmosphere, the perturbed atmospheric circulation induces substantial meridional exchanges of warm and cold air masses, which overpasses the warming tendency of BC exerted on the atmosphere. This indicates that reducing/increasing regional BC emissions immediately ameliorate/deteriorate local air quality proportionally, but the associated effects on climate perturbation may lack a clear trend within the initial 10-year time span. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.