Title: Aerosol direct shortwave radiative forcing effect based on SBDART model in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong (China)

Authors: Lili Li; Yunpeng Wang

Addresses: State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China; and Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China ' State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China

Abstract: Aerosols play an important role in the energy budget of the earth-atmosphere system. In this paper, we studied aerosol shortwave direct radiative forcing (DRF) effects in Pearl River Delta based on SBDART and a 'two-layer-single-wavelength' model. Simulation results indicated that the underlying surface type and solar zenith angle have significant impacts on aerosol radiative forcing. The comparison between aerosol radiative forcing effects on urban asphalt surface and vegetation shows cooling and warming effects of aerosol shortwave radiative forcing on urban asphalt are much more apparent than that on vegetation, implying aerosols over asphalt-predominated cities will impact the local climate. Then we estimated variations of average DRF and net radiation flux with solar zenith angle in the Pearl River Delta. DRF indicates warming at solar zenith angles of 0°, 20°, 40° and 60°, but cooling at 80°. Net radiation flux increases with a decrease in aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at low elevation, but with an increase in AOT above 5 km.

Keywords: aerosols; shortwave direct radiative forcing; net flux; underlying surface; solar zenith angle; Santa Barbara DISORT atmospheric radiative transfer; SBDART; Pearl River Delta; China.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2017.085781

International Journal of Global Warming, 2017 Vol.13 No.1, pp.1 - 15

Received: 06 Mar 2015
Accepted: 04 Sep 2015
Published online: 14 Aug 2017 *

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