The Influence of Anthropogenic Aerosol on Multi-Decadal Variations of Climate

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Dr Laura Wilcox (Reading)
• Monday 09 June 2014, 14:15-15:30
• Unilever Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Amanda Maycock.

Aerosol presents a large source of uncertainty in climate simulations. It is important to gauge which aspects of aerosol-climate interaction contribute to uncertainty to enable effort to be prioritized, and to constrain uncertainty to facilitate sound decisions on future policy.

We show that climate models with a representation of the indirect effect of aerosol better reproduce inter-decadal variability in historical global-mean near-surface temperatures compared to models representing the direct effect only. Analysis of single forcing runs from CMIP5 shows that the mid-20th century temperature hiatus is likely to have been influenced strongly by anthropogenic aerosol forcing.

As well as global impacts, aerosol can have a pronounced influence on local climate. Using case studies of regions that have large responses to aerosol forcing, we investigate the sensitivity of atmospheric metrics to aerosol changes. We find a large range of sensitivities to aerosol perturbations, as well as considerable differences in the mass loading of some species. This inter-model diversity can produce substantial variation in simulations of climate variability on multi-decadal timescales.

This talk is part of the Centre for Atmospheric Science seminars, Chemistry Dept. series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• CamBridgeSens
• Cambridge Environment
• Cambridge talks
• Centre for Atmospheric Science seminars, Chemistry Dept.
• Climate Science Seminars within Cambridge
• Department of Chemistry
• Featured lists
• LCLU Departmental Talks
• Life Science Interface Seminars
• Queens' College Politics Society
• School of Physical Sciences
• Talks related to atmosphere and ocean dynamics and climate science
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• Unilever Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.