Asian pollution climatically modulates mid-latitude cyclones following hierarchical modelling and observational analysis.
Increasing levels of anthropogenic aerosols in Asia have raised considerable concern regarding its potential impact on the global atmosphere, but the magnitude of the associated climate forcing remains to be quantified. Here, using a novel hierarchical modelling approach and observational analysis, we demonstrate modulated mid-latitude cyclones by Asian pollution over the past three decades. Regional and seasonal simulations using a cloud-resolving model show that Asian pollution invigorates winter cyclones over the northwest Pacific, increasing precipitation by 7% and net cloud radiative forcing by 1.0 W m(-2) at the top of the atmosphere and by 1.7 W m(-2) at the Earth's surface. A global climate model incorporating the diabatic heating anomalies from Asian pollution produces a 9% enhanced transient eddy meridional heat flux and reconciles a decadal variation of mid-latitude cyclones derived from the Reanalysis data. Our results unambiguously reveal a large impact of the Asian pollutant outflows on the global general circulation and climate.
1] Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Center for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Environment, Texas A&M University, College Station, 77843 Texas, USA [2] Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109, USA.
Yuan
Y
Wang
1] Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Center for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Environment, Texas A&M University, College Station, 77843 Texas, USA [2] State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Renyi
R
Zhang
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Center for Atmospheric Chemistry and the Environment, Texas A&M University, College Station, 77843 Texas, USA.
R
R
Saravanan