Abstract. The climatic and health effects of aerosols are strongly dependent on the intra-annual variations in their loading and properties. While the seasonal variations of regional aerosol optical depth (AOD) have been extensively studied, understanding the temporal variations in aerosol vertical distribution and particle types is also important for an accurate estimate of aerosol climatic effects. In this paper, we combine the observations from four satellite-borne sensors and several ground-based networks to investigate the seasonal variations of aerosol column loading, vertical distribution, and particle types over three populous regions: the Eastern United States (EUS), Western Europe (WEU), and Eastern and Central China (ECC). In all three regions, column AOD, as well as AOD at heights above 800m, peaks in summer/spring, probably due to accelerated formation of secondary aerosols and hygroscopic growth. In contrast, AOD below 800m peaks in winter over WEU and ECC regions because more aerosols are confined to lower heights due to the weaker vertical mixing. In the EUS region, AOD below 800m shows two maximums, one in summer and the other in winter. The temporal trends in low-level AOD are consistent with those in surface fine particle (PM2.5) concentrations. AOD due to fine particles ( < 0.7µm diameter) is much larger in spring/summer than in winter over all three regions. However, the coarse mode AOD ( > 1.4µm diameter), generally shows small variability, except that a peak occurs in spring in the ECC region due to the prevalence of airborne dust during this season. When aerosols are classified according to sources, the dominant type is associated with anthropogenic air pollution, which has a similar seasonal pattern as total AOD. Dust and sea-spray aerosols in the WEU region peak in summer and winter, respectively, but do not show an obvious seasonal pattern in the EUS region. Smoke aerosols, as well as absorbing aerosols, present an obvious unimodal distribution with a maximum occurring in summer over the EUS and WEU regions, whereas they follow a bimodal distribution with peaks in August and March (due to crop residue burning) over the ECC region.
Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering focused on the Arctic could substantially reduce local and worldwide impacts of anthropogenic global warming. Because the Arctic receives little sunlight during the winter, stratospheric aerosols present in the winter at high latitudes have little impact on the climate, whereas stratospheric aerosols present during the summer achieve larger changes in radiative forcing. Injecting SO2in the spring leads to peak aerosol optical depth (AOD) in the summer. We demonstrate that spring injection produces approximately twice as much summer AOD as year‐round injection and restores approximately twice as much September sea ice, resulting in less increase in stratospheric sulfur burden, stratospheric heating, and stratospheric ozone depletion per unit of sea ice restored. We also find that differences in AOD between different seasonal injection strategies are small compared to the difference between annual and spring injection.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10391720
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Volume:
- 48
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 0094-8276
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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