Aerosol and Climate Change: Direct and Indirect Aerosol Effects on Climate

Aerosol Effects on Instability, Circulations, Clouds, and Precipitation

Advances in Meteorology ◽

10.1155/2014/683950 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 2014 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Seoung-Soo Lee ◽

Wei-Kuo Tao ◽

Chang-Hoon Jung

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Review Paper ◽

Future Climate ◽

Convective Clouds ◽

Aerosol Cloud ◽

Cloud Dynamics ◽

Deep Convective Clouds ◽

Environmental Instability ◽

Aerosol Cloud Interactions ◽

Aerosol Effects

It is well known that increasing aerosol and associated changes in aerosol-cloud interactions and precipitation since industrialization have been playing an important role in climate change, but this role has not been well understood. This prevents us from predicting future climate with a good confidence. This review paper presents recent studies on the changes in the aerosol-cloud interactions and precipitation particularly in deep convective clouds. In addition, this review paper discusses how to improve our understanding of these changes by considering feedbacks among aerosol, cloud dynamics, cloud and its embedded circulations, and microphysics. Environmental instability basically determines the dynamic intensity of clouds and thus acts as one of the most important controls on these feedbacks. As a first step to the improvement of the understanding, this paper specifically elaborates on how to link the instability to the feedbacks.

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The missing climate forcing

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.1997.0018 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 352 (1350) ◽

pp. 231-240 ◽

Cited By ~ 97

Author(s):

J. Hansen ◽

M. Sato ◽

A. Lacis ◽

R. Ruedy

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

Indirect Evidence ◽

Climate Forcing ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Radiative Effect ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosols ◽

Radiative Forcings ◽

Full Period ◽

Aerosol Effects

Observed climate change is consistent with radiative forcings on several time–scales for which the dominant forcings are known, ranging from the few years after a large volcanic eruption to glacial–to–interglacial changes. In the period with most detailed data, 1979 to the present, climate observations contain clear signatures of both natural and anthropogenic forcings. But in the full period since the industrial revolution began, global warming is only about half of that expected due to the principal forcing, increasing greenhouse gases. The direct radiative effect of anthropogenic aerosols contributes only little towards resolving this discrepancy. Unforced climate variability is an unlikely explanation. We argue on the basis of several lines of indirect evidence that aerosol effects on clouds have caused a large negative forcing, at least −1 Wm −2 , which has substantially offset greenhouse warming. The tasks of observing this forcing and determining the microphysical mechanisms at its basis are exceptionally difficult, but they are essential for the prognosis of future climate change.

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Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20190063 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (6) ◽

pp. 723-729

Author(s):

Roslyn Gleadow ◽

Jim Hanan ◽

Alan Dorin

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Computer Simulation ◽

Food Security ◽

European Countries ◽

Plant Interactions ◽

Plant Insect Interactions ◽

Native Habitat ◽

Insect Pollinators ◽

Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

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Modelling ecosystem adaptation and dangerous rates of global warming

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20180113 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 221-231 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Rebecca Millington ◽

Peter M. Cox ◽

Jonathan R. Moore ◽

Gabriel Yvon-Durocher

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Global Warming ◽

Diffusion Rate ◽

Individual Species ◽

Genetic Evolution ◽

Rates Of Change ◽

Rapid Climate Change ◽

Warming Climate ◽

Intraspecies Competition ◽

High Trait

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).

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