EGU2020-9457
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9457
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Accelerated increases in global and Asian summer monsoon precipitation from future aerosol reductions

Laura Wilcox1,2, Zhen Liu3, Bjørn Samset4, Ed Hawkins1,2, Marianne Lund4, Kalle Nordling5, Sabine Undorf6, Massimo Bollasina3, Annica Ekman6, Srinath Kirshnan6, Joonas Merikanto5, and Andrew Turner1,2
Laura Wilcox et al.
  • 1National Centre for Atmospheric Science, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • 2University of Reading, Department of Meteorology, Reading, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • 3School of Geosciences, Grant Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • 4CICERO Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo, Norway
  • 5Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland
  • 6Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

There is large uncertainty in future aerosol emissions scenarios explored in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), with plausible pathways spanning a range of possibilities from large global reductions in emissions to 2050 to moderate global increases over the same period. Diversity in emissions across the pathways is particularly large over Asia. CMIP6 models indicate that rapid anthropogenic aerosol and precursor emission reductions between the present day and the 2050s lead to enhanced increases in global and Asian summer monsoon precipitation relative to scenarios with weak air quality policies. However, the effects of aerosol reductions don’t persist in precipitation to the end of the 21st century, when response to greenhouse gases dominates differences across the SSPs. The relative magnitude and spatial distribution of aerosol changes is particularly important for South Asian summer monsoon precipitation changes. Precipitation increases here are initially suppressed in SSPs 2-4.5 and 5-8.5 relative to SSP 1-1.9 and 3-7.0 when the impact of East Asian emission decreases is counteracted by that due to continued increases in South Asian emissions.

How to cite: Wilcox, L., Liu, Z., Samset, B., Hawkins, E., Lund, M., Nordling, K., Undorf, S., Bollasina, M., Ekman, A., Kirshnan, S., Merikanto, J., and Turner, A.: Accelerated increases in global and Asian summer monsoon precipitation from future aerosol reductions, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-9457, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9457, 2020.

Displays

Display file