Climate impacts of regional SO2 emissions

Abstract:

Climate impacts of regional SO2 emissions J.-F. Lamarque, A. M. Fiore and D. Shindell

In this talk, we present the analysis of constant -forcing present-day simulations pertaining to the perturbation of SO2 emissions over the United States and China. Using 3 chemistry-climate models (CESM, GFDL and GISS), we show that the removal of SO2 anthropogenic emissions over each region leads to significant (at the 95% or above; significance is also assessed relative to internal variability as determined from a 200-year control simulation with perpetual year 2000 conditions) perturbations in temperature over multiple regions of the Northern Hemisphere. While more limited, significant perturbations in regional precipitation are also found. While the overall (global and zonal means) forcing from Chinese emissions is similar to the US case, we found that the regional response to the emissions has different regional distributions.