On the contribution of fast and slow responses to precipitation changes caused by aerosol perturbations

Zhang, Shipeng; Stier, Philip; Watson-Parris, Duncan

doi:10.5194/acp-21-10179-2021

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 82 publications

(150 reference statements)

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“…globally distributed vs. regionally confined perturbations), they also find that the total precipitation response to both global BC and global sulphate are dominated by the fast response over parts of South Asia and most of the African continent. High latitude precipitation responses to these two forcers, meanwhile, are dominated by the slow precipitation response in the multi-model simulations (Samset et al, 2016), though individual models show conflicting results (Zhang et al, 2021). Similar multi-model simulations with regional idealized aerosol emissions over Asia and Europe , however, also showed a strong local fast precipitation response to Asian aerosols and almost no fast precipitation response to European aerosols.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Thus, this signal may be largely dependent on parameterization approach. Applying well-established energetic analysis approaches (Dagan et al, 2021;Ming et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2021) to more realistic aerosol perturbations in combination with moisture tracking algorithms (Mei et al, 2015) that allow better characterization of precipitation sources could help further clarify the potential role of local versus large-scale precipitation controls in determining the emergence of in-situ precipitation responses to regional aerosols.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Dependence of Aerosols’ Global and Local Precipitation Impacts on Emitting Region

Persad

2022

Preprint

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Abstract. The influence of aerosol emissions’ geographic distribution on the magnitude and spatial pattern of their precipitation impacts remains poorly understood. In this study, the NCAR CESM1 global climate model is used in coupled atmosphere-slab ocean mode to simulate the global hydrological cycle response to a fixed amount and composition of aerosol emitted from 8 key source regions. The results indicate that the location of aerosol emissions is a strong determinant of both the magnitude and spatial distribution of the hydrological response. The global-mean precipitation response to aerosol emissions is found to vary over a six-fold range depending solely on source location. Mid-latitude sources generate larger global-mean precipitation responses than do tropical and sub-tropical sources, driven largely by the formers’ stronger global-mean temperature influence. However, the spatial distribution of precipitation responses to some (largely tropical and sub-tropical) regional emissions are almost entirely localized within the source region, while responses to other (primarily mid-latitude) regional emissions are almost entirely remote. It is proposed that this diversity arises from the differing strength with which each regional emission generates fast precipitation responses that remain largely localized. The findings highlight that tropical regions are particularly susceptible to hydrological cycle change from either local or remote aerosol emissions, encourage greater investigation of the processes controlling localization of the precipitation response to regional aerosols, and demonstrate that the geographic distribution of anthropogenic aerosol emissions must be considered when estimating their hydrological impacts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dependence of Aerosols’ Global and Local Precipitation Impacts on Emitting Region

Persad

2022

Preprint

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“…These results with the time-evolving variables do not clarify how representative pre-industrial to 1975 aerosol ERF is of transient aerosol radiative effects in the coupled simulations. Secondly, studies have shown that the slow precipitation response to aerosol forcing is a more effective driver of ITCZ shifts than the fast precipitation response (Voigt et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2021). By definition aerosol ERF does not quantity the climate response to aerosol-mediated surface temperature changes, and hence alongside the time-evolving variables related to aerosol radiative effects may not be a useful proxy for aerosol-driven slow precipitation changes (which occur through surface temperature change).…”

Section: Potential Factors Obscuring a Relationship Between Tropical ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating uncertainty in aerosol forcing of tropical precipitation shifts

et al. 2022

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Abstract. An observed southward shift in tropical rainfall over land between 1950 and 1985, followed by a weaker recovery post-1985, has been attributed to anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing and cooling of the Northern Hemisphere relative to the Southern Hemisphere. We might therefore expect models that have a strong historic hemispheric contrast in aerosol forcing to simulate a further northward tropical rainfall shift in the near-term future when anthropogenic aerosol emission reductions will predominantly warm the Northern Hemisphere. We investigate this paradigm using a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE) of transient coupled ocean–atmosphere climate simulations that span a range of aerosol radiative forcing comparable to multi-model studies. In the 20th century, in our single-model ensemble, we find no relationship between the magnitude of pre-industrial to 1975 inter-hemispheric anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing and tropical precipitation shifts. Instead, tropical precipitation shifts are associated with major volcanic eruptions and are strongly affected by internal variability. However, we do find a relationship between the magnitude of pre-industrial to 2005 inter-hemispheric anthropogenic aerosol radiative forcing and future tropical precipitation shifts over 2006 to 2060 under scenario RCP8.5. Our results suggest that projections of tropical precipitation shifts will be improved by reducing aerosol radiative forcing uncertainty, but predictive gains may be offset by temporary shifts in tropical precipitation caused by future major volcanic eruptions.

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“…The response of precipitation to anthropogenic aerosol is commonly decomposed into 'fast' and 'slow' contributions (Samset et al 2016;Voigt et al 2017;Zhang et al 2021). Fast responses occur in the first days or months following the perturbation and are independent of sea-surface temperature (SST) changes (and so are efficiently studied using fixed-SST simulations).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dependence of fast changes in global and local precipitation on the geographical location of aerosol absorption

Williams

Watson-Parris

Stier

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Anthropogenic aerosol interacts strongly with incoming solar radiation, perturbing the Earth's energy budget and precipitation on both local and global scales. Understanding these changes in precipitation has proven particularly difficult for the case of absorbing aerosol, which absorbs a significant amount of incoming solar radiation and hence acts as a source of localized diabatic heating to the atmosphere. In this work, we use an ensemble of atmosphere-only climate model simulations forced by identical aerosol absorption perturbations across the globe to develop a basic physical understanding of how this localized heating impacts the atmosphere and how these changes impact on precipitation both globally and locally. In agreement with previous studies we find that aerosol absorption causes a decrease in global-mean precipitation, but we also show that even for identical aerosol optical depth perturbations, the global-mean precipitation change varies by over an order-of-magnitude depending on the location of the aerosol burden. Our experiments also demonstrate that the local precipitation response to aerosol absorption is opposite in sign between the tropics and the extratropics, as found by previous work. We then show that this contrasting response can be understood in terms of different mechanisms by which the large-scale circulation responds to heating in the extratropics and in the tropics. We provide a simple theory to explain variations in the local precipitation response to tropical aerosol absorption. Our work highlights that the spatial pattern of aerosol absorption and its interactions with circulation are a key determinant of its overall climate impact and must be taken into account when developing our understanding of aerosol-climate interactions.

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On the contribution of fast and slow responses to precipitation changes caused by aerosol perturbations

Cited by 17 publications

References 82 publications

The Dependence of Aerosols’ Global and Local Precipitation Impacts on Emitting Region

The Dependence of Aerosols’ Global and Local Precipitation Impacts on Emitting Region

Evaluating uncertainty in aerosol forcing of tropical precipitation shifts

Dependence of fast changes in global and local precipitation on the geographical location of aerosol absorption

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