Climate Effects of Black Carbon Aerosols in China and India
Surabi Menon,12*
James Hansen,1
Larissa Nazarenko,12
Yunfeng Luo3
In recent decades, there has been a tendency toward increased
summer floods in south China, increased drought in north China, and
moderate cooling in China and India while most of the world has been
warming. We used a global climate model to investigate possible aerosol
contributions to these trends. We found precipitation and temperature
changes in the model that were comparable to those observed if the
aerosols included a large proportion of absorbing black carbon
("soot"), similar to observed amounts. Absorbing aerosols heat the
air, alter regional atmospheric stability and vertical motions, and
affect the large-scale circulation and hydrologic cycle with
significant regional climate effects.
1 NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New
York, NY 10025, USA.
2 Center for Climate Systems
Research, Columbia University, New York, NY 10025, USA.
3 National Science Foundation of China, Haidian,
China.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
smenon{at}giss.nasa.gov
