Climate response to the spatial and temporal evolutions of anthropogenic aerosol forcing

Large-scale climate response to the spatial and temporal changes of anthropogenic aerosols are investigated in comparison with greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations during 1930–2010. Globally, increasing anthropogenic aerosols in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) since the industrial revolution generates a North–South interhemispherically asymmetric climate response pattern. But this feature only dominates the historical climate change early in the twentieth century. In the second half of the twentieth century, anthropogenic aerosol emissions increase monotonically in Asia, but increase first and then decrease rapidly over Europe and North America. The shift of aerosol emissions from the western mid-latitude NH to the eastern low-latitude NH induces distinct climate response patterns compared with its global increase effect, anchoring an equatorial symmetric tropical sea surface temperature (SST) cooling and precipitation decrease, which resembles that in the GHG-induced response patterns with sign reversed. After the mid-1970s, with declining aerosol emissions over Europe and North America and increasing emissions in Asia, anthropogenic aerosol forcing generates a northward recovery of the tropical rainfall with little response in the tropical SST anomalies due to the cancellation effect of the distinct aerosol emissions conditions between the western and the eastern NH. While GHG forcing dominates observed climate change in the twentieth century, the distinct climate response patterns to the spatial and temporal evolutions of anthropogenic aerosol forcing highlight its important role in shaping the regional climate changes.