Black carbon vertical profiles strongly affect its radiative forcing uncertainty

Black carbon radiative forcing at TOA decreased during aging

During aging processing, black carbon (also called soot) particles may tend to be mixed with other aerosols, and highly influence their radiative forcing. In this study, freshly emitted soot particles were simulated as fractal aggregates composed of small spherical primary monomers. After aging in the atmosphere, soot monomers were coated by a thinly layer of sulfate as thinly coated soot parti...

Climate response of direct radiative forcing of anthropogenic black carbon

[1] The equilibrium climate effect of direct radiative forcing of anthropogenic black carbon (BC) is examined by 100-year simulations in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies General Circulation Model II-prime coupled to a mixed-layer ocean model. Anthropogenic BC is predicted to raise globally and annually averaged equilibrium surface air temperature by 0.20 K if BC is assumed to be external...

Effect of internal mixture on black carbon radiative forcing

The effects of coating on black carbon (BC) optical properties and global climate forcing are revisited with more realistic approaches. We use the Generalized Multiparticle Mie method along with a realistic size range of monomers and clusters to compute the optical properties of uncoated BC clusters. Mie scattering is used to compute the optical properties of BC coated by scattering material. W...

Standard climate models radiation codes underestimate black carbon radiative forcing

Radiative forcing (RF) of black carbon (BC) in the atmosphere is estimated using radiative transfer codes of various complexities. Here we show that the two-stream radiative transfer codes used most in climate models give too strong forward scattering, leading to enhanced absorption at the surface and too weak absorption by BC in the atmosphere. Such calculations are found to underestimate the ...

Capturing vertical profiles of aerosols and black carbon