HR: 13:40h
AN: A32C-01 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Atmospheric Brown Clouds: An Integrated Approach for Understanding their Climate Impacts
AU: * Ramanathan, V
EM: vram@fiji.ucsd.edu
AB: The most visible impact of air pollution is the haze, a layer of pollutants and particles from biomass burning and industrial emissions. This cloud of pollution at times has a brownish color and this brown cloud phenomenon is a common feature of industrial and rural regions around the world. Due to long range transport, the mostly urban (fossil fuel related) or rural (biomass burning related) phenomenon is transformed into a regional haze (or cloud) that can span an entire continent. e.g., the Asian Brown Cloud or an entire ocean basin (e.g., N. Atlantic). It is now becoming increasingly clear that the brown cloud has dimmed the planet at the surface, while simultaneously making it brighter at the top, which can have large impacts on Agriculture, health, climate and the water budget of the planet. We use model results and observed precipitation records to suggest that this dimming effect could have contributed to drying of the planet. My talk will describe the discovery of the Asian Brown Cloud during the INDOEX experiment and subsequent modeling studies that link this cloud with global drying and disruption of regional climate including the S. Asian monsoon, amongst other impacts. These major advances were made possible by a unique approach that integrated surface, aircraft and satellite measurements with aerosol chemical, micro physical and assimilation models. I will conclude with a new experimental approach for solving this major global environmental problem.
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting