Abstract:
As air quality policy likely leads to continued reductions in anthropogenic aerosol emissions, the importance of natural aerosol feedbacks in the climate system is expected to grow. One potential key feedback involves the temperature-sensitive emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) from vegetation. Once in the atmosphere, these compounds contribute to the formation of secondary organic aerosols (SOA), which can go on to act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Finally, this can then cool the surface by impacting cloud properties.
Despite its potential significance, the magnitude of this feedback remains highly uncertain, with Earth System Models producing a wide range of estimates—from negligible to substantial (up to 0.3 Wm⁻²K⁻¹). Our recent process-based evaluation suggests that the lower end of these estimates may be unreliable, but structural differences across models make it challenging to determine an upper bound. This talk will examine how BVOC-aerosol-cloud interactions are represented in Earth System Models, discussing current understanding, existing uncertainties, and the role of observations in refining model predictions.
What is the Joint Oslo Seminar (JOS):
- Atmospheric and climate sciences have a stronghold in Oslo among the four institutions University of Oslo, the Meteorological Institute, CICERO and NILU.
- This joint seminar invites renowned international experts to contribute to an informal series of lectures, meant to create interaction with the Oslo atmospheric and climate science community on recent highlights and analysis in the field.
- Normally seminars will be held on Thursdays (12:15 pm -1pm).