Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 117, Issue 37, Pages 22705-22711Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2001674117
Keywords
ice nucleation; biomass burning; mixed-phase clouds; black carbon; chemical transport model
Categories
Funding
- NSF, Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Award [1433517]
- NASA, Earth Science Division Award [NNX12AH17G]
- Department of Energy, Office of Biological and Environmental Research [DE-SC0016259]
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) [DE-SC0016259] Funding Source: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Div Atmospheric & Geospace Sciences [1433517] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- NASA [19699, NNX12AH17G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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Black carbon (BC) aerosol plays an important role in the Earth's climate system because it absorbs solar radiation and therefore potentially warms the climate; however, BC can also act as a seed for cloud particles, which may offset much of its warming potential. If BC acts as an ice nucleating particle (INP), BC could affect the lifetime, albedo, and radiative properties of clouds containing both supercooled liquid water droplets and ice particles (mixed-phase clouds). Over 40% of global BC emissions are from biomass burning; however, the ability of biomass burning BC to act as an INP in mixed-phase cloud conditions is almost entirely unconstrained. To provide these observational constraints, we measured the contribution of BC to INP concentrations ([INP]) in real-world prescribed burns and wildfires. We found that BC contributes, at most, 10% to [INP] during these burns. From this, we developed a parameterization for biomass burning BC and combined it with a BC parameterization previously used for fossil fuel emissions. Applying these parameterizations to global model output, we find that the contribution of BC to potential [INP] relevant to mixed-phase clouds is similar to 5% on a global average.
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