Opportunistic experiments to constrain aerosol effective radiative forcing.

ABSTRACT: Aerosol-cloud interactions (ACIs) are considered to be the most uncertain driver of present-day radiative forcing due to human activities. The nonlinearity of cloud-state changes to aerosol perturbations make it challenging to attribute causality in observed relationships of aerosol radiative forcing. Using correlations to infer causality can be challenging when meteorological variability also drives both aerosol and cloud changes independently. Natural and anthropogenic aerosol perturbations from well-defined sources provide "opportunistic experiments" (also known as natural experiments) to investigate ACI in cases where causality may be more confidently inferred. These perturbations cover a wide range of locations and spatiotemporal scales, including point sources such as volcanic erupti

SUBMITTER: Christensen MW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8819675 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature