Aerosols overtake greenhouse gases causing a warmer climate and more weather extremes toward carbon neutrality

To mitigate climate warming, many countries have committed to achieve carbon neutrality in the mid-21 st century. Here, we assess the global impacts of changing greenhouse gases (GHGs), aerosols, and tropospheric ozone (O 3 ) following a carbon neutrality pathway on climate and extreme weather event...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2023-11, Vol.14 (1), p.7257-7257, Article 7257
Main Authors: Wang, Pinya, Yang, Yang, Xue, Daokai, Ren, Lili, Tang, Jianping, Leung, L. Ruby, Liao, Hong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/106/35/824
704/106/694/1108
704/106/694/674
Aerosols
Carbon
Carbon neutrality
Climate change
Climate prediction
Extreme weather
Global warming
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Ozone
Science
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Science (multidisciplinary)
Troposphere
Weather
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:To mitigate climate warming, many countries have committed to achieve carbon neutrality in the mid-21 st century. Here, we assess the global impacts of changing greenhouse gases (GHGs), aerosols, and tropospheric ozone (O 3 ) following a carbon neutrality pathway on climate and extreme weather events individually using the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1). The results suggest that the future aerosol reductions significantly contribute to climate warming and increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weathers toward carbon neutrality and aerosol impacts far outweigh those of GHGs and tropospheric O 3 . It reverses the knowledge that the changing GHGs dominate the future climate changes as predicted in the middle of the road pathway. Therefore, substantial reductions in GHGs and tropospheric O 3 are necessary to reach the 1.5 °C warming target and mitigate the harmful effects of concomitant aerosol reductions on climate and extreme weather events under carbon neutrality in the future. Future aerosol reductions significantly contribute to climate warming and increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather toward carbon neutrality. Aerosol impacts far outweigh those of greenhouse gases and tropospheric ozone.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-023-42891-2