Short-lived climate pollutants are reactive gases and aerosols that affect the climate in the near term, typically less than 30 years. The effects of these pollutants can vary depending on the location of emissions, with important implications for climate policies.
Bill Collins of the Met Office Hadley Centre, UK, and co-workers investigate the climate effects of three aerosol species and four ozone precursors, emitted from four regions. They study the radiative forcing using global warming potential metric, and surface temperature change using global and regional temperature-change metrics.
They conclude that aerosol forcings have only a modest dependence on the emission region, whereas some ozone precursors emitted in South Asia have greater impact than those emitted from other locations. Looking at latitudinal response shows that black carbon emissions from South Asia are impacting Arctic temperatures. Work such as this will help to inform location-specific policy on emission controls and their effectiveness.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wake, B. Short-term impacts. Nature Clim Change 3, 310 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1873
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1873
