Role of sea surface temperature responses in simulation of the climatic effect of mineral dust aerosol

Yue, Xu; Liao, Hong; Wang, H. J.; Li, S. L.; Tie, Jun

doi:10.5194/acp-11-6049-2011

Cited by 41 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(99 reference statements)

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“…With regards to SST (Fig. 11b), the decrease is estimated at 0.5°C on average over the Mediterranean Sea, and can reach 1°C in summer in the Adriatic Sea and near the African coast, which is consistent with the study of Yue et al (2011) at the global scale. A contrast can also be noticed in winter, spring and autumn between the western and the eastern basins.…”

Section: à2supporting

confidence: 86%

“…Otherwise the aerosol effect could be underestimated as shown in previous studies (e.g. Yue et al 2011). …”

Section: Impact Of Ocean-atmosphere Coupling On the Aerosol Climatic mentioning

confidence: 67%

“…However, for the time no multi-year simulation including both ocean-atmosphere coupling and aerosol radiative forcing has been done over the Mediterranean region to our knowkledge. At the global scale, the feedback of the SST to aerosol dimming has already been proven recently to reinforce the cooling due to dust aerosols (Martinez-Avellaneda et al 2010;Yue et al 2011). The North-Atlantic ocean SST is particularly influenced by dust emissions over West Africa (Evan et al 2009(Evan et al , 2011.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Direct and semi-direct aerosol radiative effect on the Mediterranean climate variability using a coupled regional climate system model

et al. 2014

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A fully coupled regional climate system model (CNRM-RCSM4) has been used over the Mediterranean region to investigate the direct and semi-direct effects of aerosols, but also their role in the radiation-atmosphereocean interactions through multi-annual ensemble simulations (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)) with and without aerosols and oceanatmosphere coupling. Aerosols have been taken into account in CNRM-RCSM4 through realistic interannual monthly AOD climatologies. An evaluation of the model has been achieved, against various observations for meteorological parameters, and has shown the ability of CNRM-RCSM4 to reproduce the main patterns of the Mediterranean climate despite some biases in sea surface temperature (SST), radiation and cloud cover. The results concerning the aerosol radiative effects show a negative surface forcing on average because of the absorption and scattering of the incident radiation. The SW surface direct effect is on average -20.9 Wm -2 over the Mediterranean Sea, -14.7 Wm -2 over Europe and -19.7 Wm -2 over northern Africa. The LW surface direct effect is weaker as only dust aerosols contribute (?4.8 Wm -2 over northern Africa). This direct effect is partly counterbalanced by a positive semi-direct radiative effect over the Mediterranean Sea (?5.7 Wm -2 on average) and Europe (?5.0 Wm -2 ) due to changes in cloud cover and atmospheric circulation. The total aerosol effect is consequently negative at the surface and responsible for a decrease in land (on average -0.4°C over Europe, and -0.5°C over northern Africa) and sea surface temperature (on average -0.5°C for the Mediterranean SST). In addition, the latent heat loss is shown to be weaker (-11.0 Wm -2 ) in the presence of aerosols, resulting in a decrease in specific humidity in the lower troposphere, and a reduction in cloud cover and precipitation. Simulations also indicate that dust aerosols warm the troposphere by absorbing solar radiation, and prevent radiation from reaching the surface, thus stabilizing the troposphere. The comparison with the model response in atmosphere-only simulations shows that these feedbacks are attenuated if SST cannot be modified by aerosols, highlighting the importance of using coupled regional models over the Mediterranean. Oceanic convection is also strengthened by aerosols, which tends to reinforce the Mediterranean thermohaline circulation. In parallel, two case studies are presented to illustrate positive feedbacks between dust aerosols and regional climate. First, the eastern Mediterranean was subject to high dust aerosol loads in June 2007 which reduce land and sea surface temperature, as well as air-sea humidity fluxes. Because of northern wind over the eastern Mediterranean, drier and cooler air has been consequently advected from the sea to the African continent, reinforcing the direct dust effect over land. On the contrary, during the western European heat wave in June 2006, dust aerosols have contributed to reinforcing an important ridge responsible for dry and 123Cl...

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Section: à2supporting

confidence: 86%

“…Otherwise the aerosol effect could be underestimated as shown in previous studies (e.g. Yue et al 2011). …”

Section: Impact Of Ocean-atmosphere Coupling On the Aerosol Climatic mentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Direct and semi-direct aerosol radiative effect on the Mediterranean climate variability using a coupled regional climate system model

et al. 2014

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“…Note that the SST response may play an important role in the simulation of the climatic effect of mineral dust aerosols. Based on the study of Yue et al (2011), the SST responses could influence the simulated dust-induced climate change, especially when climate simulations consider the two-way dust-climate coupling to account for feedbacks. Recently, an improved physically based radiation scheme has been incorporated in the UCLA AGCM with the capability to study a variety of climate problems, including the cloud and aerosol effects (Gu et al, 2003.…”

Section: Model Description and Parameterizations For Aerosol Direct Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Dust aerosol impact on North Africa climate: a GCM investigation of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions using A-Train satellite data

Gu¹,

Liou²,

Jiang

et al. 2012

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. The climatic effects of dust aerosols in North Africa have been investigated using the atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) developed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The model includes an efficient and physically based radiation parameterization scheme developed specifically for application to clouds and aerosols. Parameterization of the effective ice particle size in association with the aerosol first indirect effect based on ice cloud and aerosol data retrieved from A-Train satellite observations have been employed in climate model simulations. Offline simulations reveal that the direct solar, IR, and net forcings by dust aerosols at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) generally increase with increasing aerosol optical depth. When the dust semi-direct effect is included with the presence of ice clouds, positive IR radiative forcing is enhanced since ice clouds trap substantial IR radiation, while the positive solar forcing with dust aerosols alone has been changed to negative values due to the strong reflection of solar radiation by clouds, indicating that cloud forcing associated with aerosol semi-direct effect could exceed direct aerosol forcing. With the aerosol first indirect effect, the net cloud forcing is generally reduced in the case for an ice water path (IWP) larger than 20 g m −2 . The magnitude of the reduction increases with IWP.AGCM simulations show that the reduced ice crystal mean effective size due to the aerosol first indirect effect results in less OLR and net solar flux at TOA over the cloudy area of the North Africa region because ice clouds with smaller size trap more IR radiation and reflect more solar radiation. The precipitation in the same area, however, increases due to the aerosol indirect effect on ice clouds, corresponding to the enhanced convection as indicated by reduced OLR. Adding the aerosol direct effect into the model simulation reduces the precipitation in the normal rainfall band over North Africa, where precipitation is shifted to the south and the northeast produced by the absorption of sunlight and the subsequent heating of the air column by dust particles. As a result, rainfall is drawn further inland to the northeast.This study represents the first attempt to quantify the climate impact of the aerosol indirect effect using a GCM in connection with A-Train satellite data. The parameterization for the aerosol first indirect effect developed in this study can be readily employed for application to other GCMs.

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“…The column amount of atmospheric aerosol, quantified by the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), is one of the main factors causing this decrease. This aerosol-induced perturbation of the surface radiation budget can impact the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) (Foltz and McPhaden, 2008;Yue et al, 2011) and surface moisture exchanges by modifying latent heat fluxes (Ramanathan et al, 2001a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Absorption properties of Mediterranean aerosols obtained from multi-year ground-based remote sensing observations

Mallet

Dubovik

Nabat³

et al. 2013

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

114

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Aerosol absorption properties are of high importance to assess aerosol impact on regional climate. This study presents an analysis of aerosol absorption products obtained over the Mediterranean basin or land stations in the region from multi-year ground-based AERONET observations with a focus on the Absorbing Aerosol Optical Depth (AAOD), Single Scattering Albedo (SSA) and their spectral dependence. The AAOD and Absorption Angström Exponent (AAE) dataset is composed of daily averaged AERONET level 2 data from a total of 22 Mediterranean stations having long time series, mainly under the influence of urban-industrial aerosols and/or soil dust. This dataset covers the 17-yr period 1996–2012 with most data being from 2003–2011 (~89% of level-2 AAOD data). Since AERONET level-2 absorption products require a high aerosol load (AOD at 440 nm > 0.4), which is most often related to the presence of desert dust, we also consider level-1.5 SSA data, despite their higher uncertainty, and filter out data with an Angström exponent < 1.0 in order to study absorption by carbonaceous aerosols. The SSA dataset includes AERONET level-2 products. Sun-photometer observations show that values of AAOD at 440 nm vary between 0.024 ± 0.01 (resp. 0.040 ± 0.01) and 0.050 ± 0.01 (0.055 ± 0.01) for urban (dusty) sites. Analysis shows that the Mediterranean urban-industrial aerosols appear "moderately" absorbing with values of SSA close to ~0.94–0.95 ± 0.04 (at 440 nm) in most cases except over the large cities of Rome and Athens, where aerosol appears more absorbing (SSA ~0.89–0.90 ± 0.04). The aerosol Absorption Angström Exponent (AAE, estimated using 440 and 870 nm) is found to be larger than 1 for most sites over the Mediterranean, a manifestation of mineral dust (iron) and/or brown carbon producing the observed absorption. AERONET level-2 sun-photometer data indicate a possible East-West gradient, with higher values over the eastern basin (AAE_East = 1.39/AAE_West = 1.33). The North-South AAE gradient is more pronounced, especially over the western basin. Our additional analysis of AERONET level-1.5 data also shows that organic absorbing aerosols significantly affect some Mediterranean sites. These results indicate that current climate models treating organics as nonabsorbing over the Mediterranean certainly underestimate the warming effect due to carbonaceous aerosols

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Role of sea surface temperature responses in simulation of the climatic effect of mineral dust aerosol

Cited by 41 publications

References 57 publications

Direct and semi-direct aerosol radiative effect on the Mediterranean climate variability using a coupled regional climate system model

Direct and semi-direct aerosol radiative effect on the Mediterranean climate variability using a coupled regional climate system model

Dust aerosol impact on North Africa climate: a GCM investigation of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions using A-Train satellite data

Absorption properties of Mediterranean aerosols obtained from multi-year ground-based remote sensing observations

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