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Comparing the radiative effects of the anthropogenic aerosol emissions from Chile and Mexico
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  • Tuuli Miinalainen,
  • Harri Kokkola,
  • Kari E. J. Lehtinen,
  • Thomas Kühn
Tuuli Miinalainen
University of Eastern Finland

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Harri Kokkola
Finnish Meteorological Institute
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Kari E. J. Lehtinen
University of Eastern Finland and Finnish Meteorological Institute
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Thomas Kühn
University of Eastern Finland
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Abstract

There has been growing interest in the potential of short-lived climate forcer (SLCF) mitigation to reduce near-term global warming. Black carbon (BC) is a SLCF that is known to warm the climate by absorbing insolation and to affect the radiative balance indirectly by altering cloud properties. We used an aerosol-climate model to study the climatic effects of the anthropogenic aerosol emissions of BC, organic carbon (OC) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) from Chile and Mexico. Limiting our analysis to areas where these emissions had notable effects on both aerosol and clouds, we found that the total radiative effects of anthropogenic aerosol emissions are different for Chile and Mexico. This was explained by differences in aerosol emission strengths, their spatial distribution and differences in orography and meteorology in these two countries. Especially the radiative forcing for Chilean emissions was influenced by the persistent stratocumulus cloud deck west of Chile. The removal of OC and SO2 emissions caused a positive effective radiative forcing (ERF), while the removal of BC emissions caused a positive ERF for Chile, but a negative ERF for Mexico. When accounting for co-emission of other aerosol compounds, reduction of BC emission led to positive ERF in both countries. Compared to China, the removal of all anthropogenic SO2 emissions in Chile and Mexico caused a much larger global average ERF per emitted unit mass of SO2.
27 May 2021Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres volume 126 issue 10. 10.1029/2020JD033364