Light Absorbing Carbonaceous aerosols (LACs), including black carbon and brown carbon, are major components of atmospheric particulate matter and play a critical role in Earth’s radiative balance, air quality, climate and health burden. Their complex sources, chemical transformation, and transport create substantial challenges for accurately quantifying their environmental impacts and developing effective mitigation strategies.
This session aims to bring together observational, modeling and interdisciplinary research on carbonaceous aerosols from local to global scales. We welcome studies investigating emission sources and drivers, including anthropogenic (fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning, industrial emissions fossil-fuel combustion, residential combustion, transportation and agricultural burning) and natural processes (wildfires, biogenic volatile organic compound oxidation). Contributions addressing source apportionment, emission inventories, chemical and physical characterization, optical properties, atmospheric lifetimes, ageing and transformation are particularly encouraged.
The session will also highlight advances in ground-based, airborne and satellite remote sensing, as well as innovative measurement techniques for characterizing LAC abundance, composition and optical properties. We also invite studies that integrate observations with atmospheric models, data assimilation, machine learning and multi-platform datasets to improve understanding of these carbonaceous aerosol variability and trends.
The central focus is on the carbonaceous aerosols, climate and health nexus. Contributions addressing radiative effects, aerosol–cloud interactions, health risks (exposure assessment, epidemiological linkages, and attributable disease burden), environmental inequalities and climate-air quality interactions are encouraged. We also welcome research examining emission-control strategies and the translation of atmospheric science into evidence based air quality and climate policy, while integrating Clean-air regulatory frameworks, targeted reduction strategies (e.g., short-lived climate pollutants), and climate-air quality co-benefit evaluations.
We aim to connect aerosol sources and processes with observations, impacts and policy applications, the session seeks to foster collaboration among researchers of all career stages across atmospheric chemistry, aerosol science, remote sensing, climate science, health research and policy communities.