Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

0 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Anthropogenic aerosols and the distribution of past large-scale precipitation change.

ABSTRACT: The climate response of precipitation to the effects of anthropogenic aerosols is a critical while not yet fully understood aspect in climate science. Results of selected models that participated the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 and the data from the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project suggest that, throughout the tropics and also in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere, aerosols have largely dominated the distribution of precipitation changes in reference to the preindustrial era in the second half of the last century. Aerosol-induced cooling has offset some of the warming caused by the greenhouse gases from the tropics to the Arctic and thus formed the gradients of surface temperature anomaly that enable the revealed precipitation change patterns to occur. Improved representation of aerosol-cloud interaction has been demonstrated as the key factor for models to reproduce consistent distributions of past precipitation change with the reanalysis data.

SUBMITTER: Wang C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4845713 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

Anthropogenic aerosols and the distribution of past large-scale precipitation change.

Wang Chien C

Geophysical research letters 20151231 24

The climate response of precipitation to the effects of anthropogenic aerosols is a critical while not yet fully understood aspect in climate science. Results of selected models that participated the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 and the data from the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project suggest that, throughout the tropics and also in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere, aerosols have largely dominated the distribution of precipitation changes in reference to the preindustrial ...[more]

PMID: 27134319

Similar Datasets

Substantial global influence of anthropogenic aerosols on tropical cyclones over the past 40 years.

Project description:Over the past 40 years, anthropogenic aerosols have been substantially decreasing over Europe and the United States owing to pollution control measures, whereas they have increased in South and East Asia because of the economic and industrial growth in these regions. However, it is not yet clear how the changes in anthropogenic aerosols have altered global tropical cyclone (TC) activity. In this study, we reveal that the decreases in aerosols over Europe and the United States have contributed to significant decreases in TCs over the Southern Hemisphere as well as increases in TCs over the North Atlantic, whereas the increases in aerosols in South and East Asia have exerted substantial decreases in TCs over the western North Pacific. These results suggest that how society controls future emissions of anthropogenic aerosols will exert a substantial impact on the world's TC activity.

| S-EPMC9094658 | biostudies-literature

The effects of anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols and greenhouse gases on twentieth century Sahel precipitation.

Project description:There is little scientific consensus on the importance of external climate forcings-including anthropogenic aerosols, volcanic aerosols, and greenhouse gases (GHG)-relative to each other and to internal variability in dictating past and future Sahel rainfall. We address this query by relating a 3-tiered multi-model mean (MMM) over the Climate Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 "twentieth century" and pre-Industrial control simulations to observations. The comparison of single-forcing and historical simulations highlights the importance of anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols over GHG in generating forced Sahel rainfall variability in models. However, the forced MMM only accounts for a small fraction of observed variance. A residual consistency test shows that simulated internal variability cannot explain the residual observed multidecadal variability, and points to model deficiency in simulating multidecadal variability in the forced response, internal variability, or both.

| S-EPMC7376254 | biostudies-literature

Rates of change in natural and anthropogenic radiative forcing over the past 20,000 years.

Project description:The rate of change of climate codetermines the global warming impacts on natural and socioeconomic systems and their capabilities to adapt. Establishing past rates of climate change from temperature proxy data remains difficult given their limited spatiotemporal resolution. In contrast, past greenhouse gas radiative forcing, causing climate to change, is well known from ice cores. We compare rates of change of anthropogenic forcing with rates of natural greenhouse gas forcing since the Last Glacial Maximum and of solar and volcanic forcing of the last millennium. The smoothing of atmospheric variations by the enclosure process of air into ice is computed with a firn diffusion and enclosure model. The 20th century increase in CO(2) and its radiative forcing occurred more than an order of magnitude faster than any sustained change during the past 22,000 years. The average rate of increase in the radiative forcing not just from CO(2) but from the combination of CO(2), CH(4), and N(2)O is larger during the Industrial Era than during any comparable period of at least the past 16,000 years. In addition, the decadal-to-century scale rate of change in anthropogenic forcing is unusually high in the context of the natural forcing variations (solar and volcanoes) of the past millennium. Our analysis implies that global climate change, which is anthropogenic in origin, is progressing at a speed that is unprecedented at least during the last 22,000 years.

| S-EPMC2234160 | biostudies-literature

Anthropogenic iron oxide aerosols enhance atmospheric heating.

Project description:Combustion-induced carbonaceous aerosols, particularly black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC), have been largely considered as the only significant anthropogenic contributors to shortwave atmospheric heating. Natural iron oxide (FeOx) has been recognized as an important contributor, but the potential contribution of anthropogenic FeOx is unknown. In this study, we quantify the abundance of FeOx over East Asia through aircraft measurements using a modified single-particle soot photometer. The majority of airborne FeOx particles in the continental outflows are of anthropogenic origin in the form of aggregated magnetite nanoparticles. The shortwave absorbing powers (Pabs) attributable to FeOx and to BC are calculated on the basis of their size-resolved mass concentrations and the mean Pabs(FeOx)/Pabs(BC) ratio in the continental outflows is estimated to be at least 4-7%. We demonstrate that in addition to carbonaceous aerosols the aggregate of magnetite nanoparticles is a significant anthropogenic contributor to shortwave atmospheric heating.

| S-EPMC5440854 | biostudies-literature

Ice nucleation by aerosols from anthropogenic pollution.

Project description:The formation of ice particles in the atmosphere strongly affects cloud properties and the climate. While mineral dust is known to be an effective ice nucleating particle, the role of aerosols from anthropogenic pollution in ice nucleation is still under debate. Here we probe the ice nucleation ability of different aerosol types by combining 11-year observations from multiple satellites and cloud-resolving model simulations. We find that, for strong convective systems, ice particle effective radius near cloud top decreases with increasing loading of polluted continental aerosols, because the ice formation is dominated by homogeneous freezing of cloud droplets that are smaller under more polluted conditions. In contrast, an increase in ice particle effective radius with polluted continental aerosols is found for moderate convection. Our model simulations suggest that this positive correlation is explained by enhanced heterogeneous ice nucleation and prolonged ice particle growth at larger aerosol loading, indicating that polluted continental aerosols contain a significant fraction of ice nucleating particles. Similar aerosol-ice relationships are observed for dust aerosols, further corroborating the ice nucleation ability of polluted continental aerosols. By catalyzing ice formation, aerosols from anthropogenic pollution could have profound impacts on cloud lifetime and radiative effect as well as precipitation efficiency.

| S-EPMC6662716 | biostudies-literature

Constraining extreme precipitation projections using past precipitation variability.

Project description:Projected changes of future precipitation extremes exhibit substantial uncertainties among climate models, posing grand challenges to climate actions and adaptation planning. Practical methods for narrowing the projection uncertainty remain elusive. Here, using large model ensembles, we show that the uncertainty in projections of future extratropical extreme precipitation is significantly correlated with the model representations of present-day precipitation variability. Models with weaker present-day precipitation variability tend to project larger increases in extreme precipitation occurrences under a given global warming increment. This relationship can be explained statistically using idealized distributions for precipitation. This emergent relationship provides a powerful constraint on future projections of extreme precipitation from observed present-day precipitation variability, which reduces projection uncertainty by 20-40% over extratropical regions. Because of the widespread impacts of extreme precipitation, this has not only provided useful insights into understanding uncertainties in current model projections, but is also expected to bring potential socio-economic benefits in climate change adaptation planning.

| S-EPMC9633619 | biostudies-literature

Contributions of precipitation and temperature to the large scale geographic distribution of fleshy-fruited plant species: Growth form matters.

Project description:Fruit type, an important reproductive trait, is closely related to reproduction strategy, community dynamics and biotic interactions. However, limited research has explored the geographic distribution of fruit type and the underlying abiotic factors influencing this on a large scale. Here we aim to study large-scale distribution patterns of fleshy-fruited plant species and the most important environmental drivers for different growth forms in utilizing the fruit type and distribution data for over 27000 plant species in China. Results indicated that the proportion of fleshy-fruited species was higher in southeast China, and this pattern was consistent between different growth forms. Overall, the proportion of fleshy-fruited species was higher in wet, warm, and stable environments. Notably, mean annual precipitation had the greatest predictive contribution to woody fleshy-fruited species distributions, but mean annual temperature best predicted the herbaceous fleshy-fruited species distributions. We provide the first map of a large-scale distribution of fleshy-fruited plant species for different growth forms in the northern hemisphere and show that these geographic patterns are mainly determined by contrasting climatic gradients. Recognizing that climate factors have different relationships with different growth forms of fleshy-fruited species advances our knowledge about fruit type and environment. This work contributes to predictions of the global distribution of fleshy-fruited species under future climate change scenarios and provides a reference for continued research on the complex interactions between plants, frugivores and the environment.

| S-EPMC6243012 | biostudies-literature

Climate change and anthropogenic food manipulation interact in shifting the distribution of a large herbivore at its altitudinal range limit.

Project description:Ungulates in alpine ecosystems are constrained by winter harshness through resource limitation and direct mortality from weather extremes. However, little empirical evidence has definitively established how current climate change and other anthropogenic modifications of resource availability affect ungulate winter distribution, especially at their range limits. Here, we used a combination of historical (1997-2002) and contemporary (2012-2015) Eurasian roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) relocation datasets that span changes in snowpack characteristics and two levels of supplemental feeding to compare and forecast probability of space use at the species' altitudinal range limit. Scarcer snow cover in the contemporary period interacted with the augmented feeding site distribution to increase the elevation of winter range limits, and we predict this trend will continue under climate change. Moreover, roe deer have shifted from historically using feeding sites primarily under deep snow conditions to contemporarily using them under a wider range of snow conditions as their availability has increased. Combined with scarcer snow cover during December, January, and April, this trend has reduced inter-annual variability in space use patterns in these months. These spatial responses to climate- and artificial resource-provisioning shifts evidence the importance of these changing factors in shaping large herbivore spatial distribution and, consequently, ecosystem dynamics.

| S-EPMC8027592 | biostudies-literature

Natural and anthropogenic factors drive large-scale freshwater fish invasions.

Project description:We analyzed the large-scale drivers of biological invasions using freshwater fish in a Mediterranean country as a test case, and considering the contribution of single species to the overall invasion pattern. Using Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) models, variation partitioning and Redundancy Analysis (RDA), we found that human factors (especially eutrophication) and climate (especially temperature) were significant drivers of overall invasion. Geography was also relevant in BRT and RDA analysis, both at the overall invasion and the single species level. Only variation partitioning suggested that land use was the second most significant driver group, with considerable overlap between different invasion drivers and only land use and human factors standing out for single effects. There was general accordance both between different analyses, and between invasion outcomes at the overall and the species level, as most invasive species share similar ecological traits and prefer lowland river stretches. Human-mediated eutrophication was the most relevant invasion driver, but the role of geography and climate was at least equally important in explaining freshwater fish invasions. Overall, human factors were less prominent than natural factors in driving the spread and prevalence of invasion, and the species spearheading it.

| S-EPMC9213492 | biostudies-literature

Higher probability of compound flooding from precipitation and storm surge in Europe under anthropogenic climate change.

Project description:In low-lying coastal areas, the co-occurrence of high sea level and precipitation resulting in large runoff may cause compound flooding (CF). When the two hazards interact, the resulting impact can be worse than when they occur individually. Both storm surges and heavy precipitation, as well as their interplay, are likely to change in response to global warming. Despite the CF relevance, a comprehensive hazard assessment beyond individual locations is missing, and no studies have examined CF in the future. Analyzing co-occurring high sea level and heavy precipitation in Europe, we show that the Mediterranean coasts are experiencing the highest CF probability in the present. However, future climate projections show emerging high CF probability along parts of the northern European coast. In several European regions, CF should be considered as a potential hazard aggravating the risk caused by mean sea level rise in the future.

| S-EPMC6750907 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data