Short-lived pollutants in the Arctic: their climate impact and possible mitigation strategies

P. K. Quinn (1) , T. S. Bates (1) , E. Baum (2) , N. Doubleday (3) , A. M. Fiore (4) , M. Flanner (5) , A. Fridlind (6) , T. J. Garrett (7) , D. Koch (6) , S. Menon (8) , D. Shindell (6) , A. Stohl (9) , S. G. Warren (10)

1 PMEL - NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory [Seattle]
2 CATF - Clean Air Task Force
3 Carleton University
4 GFDL - NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
5 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]
6 GISS - NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
7 University of Utah
8 LBNL - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [Berkeley]
9 NILU - Norwegian Institute for Air Research
10 University of Washington [Seattle]

Several short-lived pollutants known to impact Arctic climate may be contributing to the accelerated rates of warming observed in this region relative to the global annually averaged temperature increase. Here, we present a summary of the short-lived pollutants that impact Arctic climate including methane, tropospheric ozone, and tropospheric aerosols. For each pollutant, we provide a description of the major sources, the mechanism of forcing, seasonally averaged forcing values for the Arctic, and the corresponding surface temperature response. We suggest strategies for reducing the warming based on current knowledge and discuss directions for future research to address remaining uncertainties.

Domaines: Océan, Atmosphère

P. K. Quinn, T. S. Bates, E. Baum, N. Doubleday, A. M. Fiore, et al.. Short-lived pollutants in the Arctic: their climate impact and possible mitigation strategies. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, 2007, 7 (6), pp.15669-15692. ⟨hal-00303165⟩