| 英文摘要: | Arctic temperatures are increasing because of long- and short-lived climate forcers, with reduction of the short-lived species potentially offering some quick mitigation. Now a regional assessment reveals the emission locations of these short-lived species and indicates international co-operation is needed to develop an effective mitigation plan. Short-lived climate-forcing pollutants (SLCPs), such as black carbon (BC) and ozone, are substances that affect both air quality and climate. As the name suggests, they remain in the atmosphere for only short periods, that is, weeks or even days, and so their impact on climate can be mitigated almost instantaneously. Quantifying the warming impact of SLCPs is needed to aid quick and effective mitigation strategies and to slow warming as soon as possible. This is highly relevant to the Arctic, a region particularly susceptible to climate change, where warming is occurring twice as fast as the global average1. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Maria Sand and colleagues2 show that global emissions of BC and ozone precursors — chemical compounds that react with sunlight to form ozone — cause Arctic warming of currently about 0.5 °C. They project that this warming could be reduced by 0.2 °C by 2050 under an ambitious but possible global mitigation scenario3, thereby slowing sea-ice retreat and Greenland ice-sheet melt.
Air pollutants emitted globally can reach the Arctic and significantly change the radiative balance there. View of Spitzbergen, an island on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, on a hazy day (top), and on a clear day (bottom). Adapted from ref. 11, © 2007 Copernicus.
- Cohen, J. et al. Nature Geosci. 7, 627–637 (2014).
- Sand, M. et al. Nature Clim. Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2880 (2015).
- Stohl, A. et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 10529–10566 (2015).
- The Impact of Black Carbon on the Arctic Climate (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, 2011).
- Black Carbon and Ozone as Arctic Climate Forcers (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, in the press).
- Enhanced Black Carbon and Methane Emissions Reductions An Arctic Council Framework for Action (Arctic Council, 2015).
- Acidifying Pollutants, Arctic Haze, and Acidification in the Arctic (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, 2006).
- Mercury in the Arctic (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, 2011).
- Hartmann, D. L. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) 159–254 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).
- Shindell, D. T. Climatic Change 130, 313–326 (2015).
- Stohl, A. et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 7, 511–534 (2007).
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Affiliations
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Julia Schmale is at the Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), 5232 Villigen, Switzerland
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