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SOURCE ATTRIBUTION OF RADIATIVE FORCING FROM SHORT LIVED CLIMATE FORCING AGENTS
Impact/Purpose:
The project objective is to account for the radiative forcing impacts of aerosols and tropospheric ozone (O3) from changes to their precursor emissions owing to air quality and greenhouse gas policies. This will be accomplished through the following research tasks:
- quantify the impacts of emissions from each sector, in each model grid cell, on the global and regional radiative forcing of tropospheric O3 and aerosols.
- assess the radiative forcing consequences of existing and proposed U.S. regulations for air quality and greenhouse gas mitigation.
Description:
The immediate project result is quantification of the pre-industrial to present forcing for anthropogenic emissions, the radiative effects of natural emissions, and spatial distribution of the radiative forcing efficiency for key aerosol and O3 precursors (i.e., mW/m2 per emission). The latter result can be applied to quickly approximate the radiative impacts of future emissions scenarios without preforming additional global model simulations. Such an estimation tool affords analysis of a broad range of scenarios as a means to explore propagation of uncertainties in these scenarios themselves. Further, knowing the degree to which changes in radiative forcing from aerosols and O3 owing to air quality regulations will o set or augment the radiative forcing goals of greenhouse gas mitigation e orts will allow for modulation of such policies to account for the impacts on climate through associated changes to short lived climate forcers (SLCFs). This may ultimately facilitate the design of emissions scenarios that effectively address both climate and air quality goals.