Description:

Atmospheric aerosols from natural or anthropogenic sources have profound impacts on Earth's radiation budget, hydrological cycle, as well as regional and global climate. Currently, the radiative forcing of aerosols in the climate system remains highly uncertain, representing the largest uncertainty in climate predictions. For the direct effect, aerosols scatter and absorb solar radiation. Light scattering by aerosols changes the radiative fluxes at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA), at the surface, and within the atmospheric column, while aerosol absorption modifies the atmospheric temperature structure, decreases the solar radiation at the surface, and lowers surface sensible and latent fluxes, suppressing convection and reducing cloud fraction. Also, aerosols indirectly impact climate by altering cloud development, lifetime, albedo, and precipitation efficiency. On the other hand, climate variabilities also affect aerosol cycle and lifetime by altering aerosol removal processes. Current treatments of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions remain crude in climate models. This session aims to review the state of current understanding on aerosol-climate interaction, so we invite any paper on the related subjects.