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Representing anthropogenic dust in E3SMv1: Implementation, evaluation, and assessment of their radiative forcing
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  • Yang Shi,
  • Xiaohong Liu,
  • Chenglai Wu,
  • Zheng Lu,
  • Kai Zhang,
  • Po-Lun Ma
Yang Shi
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Xiaohong Liu
Texas A&M University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Chenglai Wu
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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Zheng Lu
Texas A&M University
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Kai Zhang
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DOE)
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Po-Lun Ma
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DOE)
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Abstract

Dust emissions related to anthropogenic activities (i.e., anthropogenic dust (AD)) is not represented in most global climate models and its radiative impact remains unassessed. In this study, we develop a new and physically based method to parameterize AD emission based on the DOE’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 1 (E3SMv1). This method relates AD emission to the crop land use fraction in the E3SMv1 land component. Major AD sources simulated by our parameterization include those over Central America, the Sahel, North India, and North China. The annual averaged AD emission is 567 Tg yr-1 in present-day (year 2000), which contributes to 13.3 % of total dust emission. Model evaluation against satellite and ground-based observations shows that the new parameterization can represent AD emissions and global dust cycle reasonably well. We find that the total dust emission increases by 13 % (495 Tg yr-1) from 1850 to 2000 mainly due to the cropland land use fraction changes, which induces a net dust direct effective radiative forcing of -0.041 W m-2 at top of the atmosphere. This AD-induced cooling exceeds 10% of the total anthropogenic aerosol direct effective radiative forcing from 1750 to 2014 estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report. Our findings indicate an important role of AD in the regional and global climate changes, which should be included in future climate change assessments.
12 Jul 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
20 Jul 2023Published in ESS Open Archive