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Warming-induced increase in aerosol number concentration likely to moderate climate change

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 438–442 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Atmospheric aerosol particles influence the climate system directly by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, and indirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei1,2,3,4. Apart from black carbon aerosol, aerosols cause a negative radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere and substantially mitigate the warming caused by greenhouse gases1. In the future, tightening of controls on anthropogenic aerosol and precursor vapour emissions to achieve higher air quality may weaken this beneficial effect5,6,7. Natural aerosols, too, might affect future warming2,3,8,9. Here we analyse long-term observations of concentrations and compositions of aerosol particles and their biogenic precursor vapours in continental mid- and high-latitude environments. We use measurements of particle number size distribution together with boundary layer heights derived from reanalysis data to show that the boundary layer burden of cloud condensation nuclei increases exponentially with temperature. Our results confirm a negative feedback mechanism between the continental biosphere, aerosols and climate: aerosol cooling effects are strengthened by rising biogenic organic vapour emissions in response to warming, which in turn enhance condensation on particles and their growth to the size of cloud condensation nuclei. This natural growth mechanism produces roughly 50% of particles at the size of cloud condensation nuclei across Europe. We conclude that biosphere–atmosphere interactions are crucial for aerosol climate effects and can significantly influence the effects of anthropogenic aerosol emission controls, both on climate and air quality.

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Figure 1: Measurement locations and data periods.
Figure 2: The relationship between air temperature and the number concentration and burden of CCN-sized aerosol particles.
Figure 3: Concentration N100 as a function of gas phase monoterpene concentration ([MT]) and organic aerosol mass mOA (inset) at T>5 °C.
Figure 4: Schematic and estimated regional strengths of the proposed climate feedback mechanism.
Figure 5: Schematic summarizing the implications of the temperature dependence of CCN-sized particle burdens (B100).

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by European Research Council (ATMNUCLE, 227463), Academy of Finland (Center of Excellence Program project 1118615; projects 11750, 127210, 132640 and 139656), European Commission sixth Framework program (EUCAARI, contract no 036833-2; EUSAAR, contract no 026140), European Commission seventh Framework program (ACTRIS, contract no 262254; PEGASOS, contract no 265148), Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation (projects 2010143, 2011200, 2012443 and 2013325) and the Otto A. Malm foundation. For providing data, we acknowledge the Physical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, Colorado (for the boundary layer height data acquired from their web site at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/), the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Gerald Spindler, Pasi P. Aalto and Harald Flentje. We thank Ville Vakkari for help in quality assurance of Botsalano data and students and staff of North-West University (Mafikeng Campus), RSA, for weekly maintenance. The various measurements were supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (FE 370343200), Environment Canada, NSERC, CFCAS-CAFC, the National Science Foundation (#0544745 and supplement, and 1102309), the Swedish Research Council (projects 2007-3745, 2007-4619 and 2010-4683) and the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas, project 2009-615).

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Author notes

  1. Pauli Paasonen and Ari Asmi: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, FI-00014, Finland

    Pauli Paasonen, Ari Asmi, Tuukka Petäjä, Maija K. Kajos, Mikko Äijälä, Heikki Junninen, Douglas R. Worsnop, Veli-Matti Kerminen & Markku Kulmala

  2. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria

    Pauli Paasonen

  3. Centre for Geo Biosphere Science, Lund University, S-22362 Lund, Sweden

    Thomas Holst

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Ontario, M5S 3H6, Canada

    Jonathan P. D. Abbatt

  5. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research/Atmospheric Environmental Research, 82467 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

    Almut Arneth

  6. Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

    Wolfram Birmili & Alfred Wiedensohler

  7. TNO Built Environment and Geosciences, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Hugo Denier van der Gon

  8. Department of Applied Physics, University of Eastern Finland, 70210 Kuopio, Finland

    Amar Hamed, Ari Laaksonen & Douglas R. Worsnop

  9. MTA-PE Air Chemistry Research Group, 8200 Veszprém, Hungary

    András Hoffer

  10. Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland

    Lauri Laakso, Ari Laaksonen, Petri Räisänen & Douglas R. Worsnop

  11. School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, North-West University, Potchefstroom 2520, South Africa

    Lauri Laakso

  12. Science and Technology Branch, Environment Canada, Toronto, Ontario, M3H 5T4, Canada

    W. Richard Leaitch

  13. Deutscher Wetterdienst, Meteorologisches Observatorium Hohenpeissenberg, 82383 Hohenpeissenberg, Germany

    Christian Plass-Dülmer

  14. Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA

    Sara C. Pryor

  15. Division of Nuclear Physics, Lund University, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden

    Erik Swietlicki

  16. Aerodyne Research, Inc., Billerica, Massachusetts 01821-3976, USA

    Douglas R. Worsnop

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  1. Pauli Paasonen
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Contributions

P.P. had the original idea; P.P. and A. Asmi made the data analysis; A. Asmi made the figures; M.K.K., T.H. and C.P-D. made the monoterpene concentration measurements and the data pre-analysis; M.Ä., H.J. and J.P.D.A. made the aerosol mass concentration measurements; A. Asmi, V-M.K., A.L. and P.R. made the calculations of the feedback strength; A. Arneth, W.B., A. Hamed, A. Hoffer, T.H., L.L., W.R.L., S.C.P., E.S., A.W. and T.P. provided the particle number size distribution and meteorological data; H.D.v.d.G. provided the anthropogenic emission inventory data; T.P., D.R.W. and M.K. supervised the analysis and writing; P.P., A. Asmi and V-M.K. wrote the paper; All authors contributed with their comments to the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Pauli Paasonen or Ari Asmi.

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Paasonen, P., Asmi, A., Petäjä, T. et al. Warming-induced increase in aerosol number concentration likely to moderate climate change. Nature Geosci 6, 438–442 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1800

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