Air Pollution, Aerosols and Clouds in the Climate System

 When it comes to explaining role of aerosols in Earth's climate and in particular their effects on clouds, we can't ask for better than this Meinrat Andreae's video article.  Meinrat Andreae, Latest Thinking, What is the Impact of Aerosol Particles on Cloud Formation?, https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10396 , 2004   What is the impact of aerosol particles on cloud formation?

Couple of days back, a professor in my department forwarded me the link of this movie, saying it is 20 min long but worth seeing. After seeing I realized that this was the best animation I have ever seen. Click on the image or here to see movie. I don't want to spoil surprise by writing more about movie but if you trust my words, you are guaranteed your time will not be wasted.

"All models have assumed that particles are spherical and have chosen single values for the refractive index. If underlying model assumptions are inappropriate, then scattering, absorption and radiative forcing estimates will be incorrect." This is one the statement made by Tami Bond and Robert Bergstrom in the review paper titled ‘Light Absorption by Carbonaceous Particles: An Investigative Review’ published in Aerosol Science and Technology, 2006. I had chance to present this paper as class seminar in my ‘Atmos pheric Aerosol’ class teaching by Dr. Kirk Fuller during this summer. Let me tell you this, “this is one of the best written paper I ever read on carbon aerosols”. It reads very well and has almost all the information you need to know about atmospheric carbon aerosols and their optical properties. Personally, I congratulate and thanks Tami and Robert for putting together this wonderful paper. Below, I will briefly touch some important points from the paper. Motivati...

Global climate change is one the area to watch in 2007 as noted by Science magazine in an issue published on December 22, 2006. According to science ‘The case for human-induced warming will grow even more ironclad as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its report in February. Meanwhile, the International Polar Year, opening in March, will feature climate research on Earth's coldest climes. And the world is watching the U.S. Congress, which, under Democratic control, is expected to pass some sort of mandatory emission regime, and President George W. Bush, whose response will be sure to shape the debate’. But how general public think about global warming? Do they really understand it properly? A survey conducted by David Suzuki Foundation reveals it, ‘Simply put, most people don’t have a clue. The majority felt that global warming was a pretty important problem and they were concerned about it. But when pressed as to why it was a problem or what caused the proble...

An article by Auffhammer M, Ramanathan V. and Jeffery V in December 26th, 2006 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), USA suggests that atmospheric brown cloud (ABC) and green house gases (GHG) are responsible for reduction in rice harvest in India. Atmospheric brown cloud is a term coined by Ramanathan to describe aerosol layer with absorbing nature of particles. Many scientist argue that aerosols are counteracting the warming trend due to green house gases and can be used to mitigate warming trend by putting them in stratosphere. However in case of rice harvest in India both aerosols and GHGs act complementary to each other with net effect of reduction in rice production. Approach taken in this article is different in the sense that it is not about biogeophysical aspect. Rather it is a fusion of economical and general circulation models. Authors have used statistical approach to know how changes in rainfall or extreme temperatures affect area to be harveste...