Observation of Atmospheric Composition Change in China will Start - Better Parameterization of Various Physical Processes for Climate Modeling - |
Dr. Akimoto will explain the observational project in China, where the atmospheric chemical projects were rarely conducted. |
Hajime Akimoto (Director, Atmospheric Composition Research Program) |
What causes global warming and accompanying climate change? It is well known that longlived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) targeted in Kyoto Protocol, that Japan ratified are the causes. However, they are not the sole category of compounds that determines global warming and climate change.
Recently, it has been pointed out that short - lived air pollutants such as tropospheric ozone and aerosols are very important for climate change and it is anticipated that they will be focused in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Fig. 1 below shows the global warming effect of each of these species since the industrial revolution. As shown in the figure, CO2, CH4, tropospheric ozone and aerosols are the most important for global warming.
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From this viewpoint, we will start observations of these four major species focusing on China where intense observation of atmospheric chemistry has not been made. This project is titled "Observational Study on Atmospheric Composition Change in East Asia Related to Global Warming". The goal of this study is to quantify process parameters of material budget of these species for the purpose of contributing to the development of chemistry/climate coupling model. Among these species, Prof. Nakazawa's group at Tohoku University and Prof. Nakajima's Tokyo University, are responsible for CO2/CH4 and aerosols, respectively.
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CO2 and/or
O3 observation stations;
Aerosol radiation observation
Frontier Observational Research System for Global Change (FORSGC) is responsible for tropsopheric ozone and its precursors. Fig. 2 above depicts the location of the observational stations proposed in this study.
