Coupled Climate Responses to Recent Australian Wildfire and COVID-19
Emissions Anomalies Estimated in CESM2
Abstract
Multiple 50-member ensemble simulations with the Community Earth System
Model version 2 are performed to estimate the coupled climate responses
to the 2019-2020 Australian wildfires and COVID-19 pandemic policies.
The climate response to the pandemic is found to be weak generally, with
net top-of-atmosphere radiative anomalies of +0.23+-0.14 W m/2driving a
gradual global warming of 0.05+-0.04 K by the end of 2022. While
regional anomalies are detectible in aerosol burdens and clear-sky
radiation, few significant anomalies exist in other fields due to
internal variability. In contrast, the simulated response to Australian
wildfires is a strong and rapid cooling, peaking at -0.95+-0.15 W m/2 in
late 2019 with an anomalous global cooling of 0.06+-0.04 K by mid-2020.
Transport of fire aerosols throughout the Southern Hemisphere increases
albedo and drives a strong interhemispheric radiative contrast, with
simulated responses that are consistent generally with those to a
Southern Hemisphere volcanic eruption.