Managing short-lived climate forcers in curbing climate change: an atmospheric chemistry synopsis

Near-term climate mitigation by short-lived forcers.

Emissions reductions focused on anthropogenic climate-forcing agents with relatively short atmospheric lifetimes, such as methane (CH4) and black carbon, have been suggested as a strategy to reduce the rate of climate change over the next several decades. We find that reductions of methane and black carbon would likely have only a modest impact on near-term global climate warming. Even with max...

Supplement of Regional temperature change potentials for short-lived climate forcers based on radiative forcing from multiple models

Vehicle emissions of short-lived and long-lived climate forcers: trends and tradeoffs.

Evaluating technology options to mitigate the climate impacts of road transportation can be challenging, particularly when they involve a tradeoff between long-lived emissions (e.g., carbon dioxide) and short-lived emissions (e.g., methane or black carbon). Here we present trends in short- and long-lived emissions for light- and heavy-duty transport globally and in the U.S., EU, and China over ...

Regional and seasonal radiative forcing by perturbations to aerosol and ozone precursor emissions

Predictions of temperature and precipitation responses to changes in the anthropogenic emissions of climate forcers require the quantification of the radiative forcing exerted by those changes. This task is particularly difficult for near-term climate forcers like aerosols, methane, and ozone precursors because their short atmospheric lifetimes cause regionally and temporally inhomogeneous radi...

Regional temperature change potentials for short-lived climate forcers based on radiative forcing from multiple models

We calculate the absolute regional temperature change potential (ARTP) of various short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) based on detailed radiative forcing (RF) calculations from four different models. The temperature response has been estimated for four latitude bands (90– 28 S, 28 S–28 N, 28–60 N, and 60–90 N). The regional pattern in climate response not only depends on the relationship betwee...