Direct Radiative Forcing and Climatic Effects of Aerosols over East Asia by RegCM3

The authors used a high-resolution regional climate model （RegCM3） coupled with a chemistry/ aerosol module to simulate East Asian climate in 2006 and to test the climatic impacts of aerosols on regional- scale climate. The direct radiative forcing and climatic effects of aerosols （dust, sulfate, black carbon, and organic carbon） were discussed. The results indicated that aerosols generally produced negative radiative forcing at the top-of-the-atmosphere （TOA） over most areas of East Asia. The radiative forcing induced by aerosols exhibited significant seasonal and regional variations, with the strongest forcing occurring in summer. The aerosol feed- backs on surface air temperature and precipitation were clear. Surface cooling dominated features over the East Asian continental areas, which varied in the approximate range of-0.5 to -2℃ with the maximum up to -3℃ in summer over the deserts of West China. The aerosols induced complicated variations of precipitation. Except in summer, the rainfall generally varied in the range of-1 to 1 mm d^-1 over most areas of China.

Impact of Different East Asian Summer Monsoon Circulations on Aerosol-Induced Climatic Effects

The different spatial distributions of aerosol-induced direct radiative forcing and climatic effects in a weak （2003） and a strong （2006） East Asian summer monsoon （EASM） circulation were simulated using a high-resolution regional climate model （RegCM3）.Results showed that the atmospheric circulations of summer monsoon have direct relations with transport of aerosols and their climatic effects.Both the top-of-the-atmosphere （TOA） and the surface-negative radiative forcing of aerosols were stronger in weak EASM circulations.The main difference in aerosol-induced negative forcing in two summers varied between 2 and 14 W m-2 from the Sichuan Basin to North China,where a maximum in aerosol-induced negative forcing was also noticed in the EASM-dominated areas.The spatial difference in the simulated aerosol optical depth （AOD） in two summers generally showed the similar pictures.Surface cooling effects induced by aerosols were spatially more uniform in weak EASM circulations and cooler by about 1-4.5℃.A preliminary analysis here indicated that a weaker low-level wind speed not conducive to the transport and diffusion of aerosols could make more contributions to the differences in the two circulations.