The influence of anthropogenic aerosol on multi-decadal variations of historical global climate

By L. Wilcox, E. Highwood, N. Dunstone. 2013

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Analysis of single forcing runs from CMIP5 (the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) simulations shows that the mid-twentieth century temperature hiatus, and the coincident decrease in precipitation, is likely to have been influenced strongly by anthropogenic aerosol forcing. Models that include a representation of the indirect effect of aerosol better reproduce inter-decadal variability in historical global-mean near-surface temperatures, particularly the cooling in the 1950s and 1960s, compared to models with representation of the aerosol direct effect only. Models with the indirect effect also show a more pronounced decrease in precipitation during this period, which is in better agreement with observations, and greater inter-decadal variability in the inter-hemispheric temperature difference. This study demonstrates the importance of representing aerosols, and their indirect effects, in general circulation models, and suggests that inter-model diversity in aerosol burden and representation of aerosol–cloud interaction can produce substantial variation in simulations of climate variability on multi-decadal timescales.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a836949729cc61132e0d4809595f6caeb50df2f7

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atmospheric Science

  1. A. Friedman
  2. Ed Hawkins
  3. C. Iles
  4. A. Schurer
  5. Gabriele C. Hegerl
  6. Reto Knutti

In Global and Planetary Change

  1. A. Friedman
  2. Ed Hawkins
  3. C. Iles
  4. T. Cowan
  5. A. Schurer
  6. Gabriele C. Hegerl
  7. Reto Knutti

Citations in the corpus