Air Pollution, Aerosols and Clouds in the Climate System

Continuing from our last blog post on the issue of aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) and the importance of its vertical distribution, l would like to bring to attention another important aspect associated with aerosols that affect global ARF. This aspect is the transport of aerosols which is very closely related to its vertical distribution. One of the largest sources of aerosols is desert. These desert dust aerosols have gained much attention due to the long range transport associated with them. The dust from these deserts is lifted higher in the atmosphere and ‘because of the fast large-scale transport in the upper troposphere, aerosols such as dust and black carbon, once they enter the upper troposphere (above ~8 km), can be transported around the earth in a latitudinal belt in a week or two’. ‘The impact of long range transport of dust and air pollution from their continental sources over oceanic regions is one of the outstanding problems in understanding regional and global climate ...