The Tibet Autonomous Region in China is a unique place with high altitude and special Tibetan culture. The residents have different living habits and domestic fuels from those in other parts of China, however, knowledge on the emission characteristics of local residential fuels remain poorly understood until now. In this study, nine popular residential fuels in the Tibet are burned in situ to study the aerosol chemical compositions, mass spectral signatures, and emission characteristics from their burning emissions. Overall, emissions of particulate and gaseous pollutants depend strongly on the burning conditions, in addition to the fuel constituents themselves. Burning the biofuels of yak dung, WeiSang mixture fuels, and two powdery Tibetan incenses with relatively low combustion efficiencies can emit large amounts of CO and aerosols, especially organic aerosols (>90%) with large diameters. In contrast, burning of wood, coal, ghee lamp, stick-like Tibetan incense, and diesel can release abundant CO2 but fewer aerosols from their flaming combustion. A comprehensive database consisting of the high-resolution mass spectra of organics and emission factors of multiple chemical components are established. Distinctly different mass spectral signatures are found among the different fuels, in particularly those unique Tibetan biofuels. All these findings have significant implications for the identification of aerosol sources, compilation of pollutant emission inventories, and assessment of potential environment effects in this remote region.

Opposite anthropogenic aerosol emission trends in Asia can lead to different responses of the climate. Here, we examined the responses of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) to changes in Asian anthropogenic aerosol emissions during 2006-2014 using a global aerosol/atmospheric chemistry-climate coupled model (BCC_AGCM2.0_CUACE/Aero) with two sets of emission inventories: the Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) inventory adopted by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) and the inventory developed at Peking University (PKU). The changes in Asian anthropogenic aerosol emissions during 2006-2014 between the two inventories were remarkably different, particularly in eastern China where completely opposite trends were observed (i.e., increase in the CEDS inventory, but significant reduction in the PKU inventory). The perturbation simulations with the Asian anthropogenic aerosol forcing from the two inventories showed opposite changes in aerosol optical depth, aerosol effective radiative forcing, cloud liquid water path, and total cloud cover in eastern China. The simulated 'dipole-type' changes (i.e., increase in India but decrease in China) in Asian aerosols and the resulting changes in local radiation budget under the PKU inventory were consistent with the corresponding observations. The summer surface temperatures over eastern China decreased by 0-0.4 K because of the Asian anthropogenic aerosol forcing under the CEDS inventory, while they increased by 0.1-0.8 K under the PKU inventory. The weakening of the EASM index caused by the Asian aerosol forcing under the PKU inventory was twofold greater than that under the CEDS inventory (-0.4 vs. -0.2). The Asian 'dipole-type' aerosol forcing contributed to the observed summer 'southern drought and northern flood' phenomenon in eastern China during 2006-2014. The slow ocean-mediated response to the regional 'dipole-type' aerosol forcing dominated the weakening of the EASM circulation and the precipitation changes in eastern China in the total response. This study further confirms that the biases in anthropogenic aerosol emissions over Asia can affect the CMIP6-based regional climate attribution.

Facing severe air pollution issues, China has implemented a series of clean air policies aimed to improve the country's air quality. These policies largely focused on reducing emissions of major air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and primary aerosols. However, changes in such pollution also affect radiative forcing. To understand the climate consequences of these clean air actions in China, we evaluate the near-equilibrium climate response to sustained changes in aerosol (and precursors) emission rates equivalent to those that occurred in China between 2006 and 2017. During this period, China's SO(2)emissions declined by similar to 70%, and black carbon emissions declined by similar to 30%. Climate simulations that used a fully coupled ocean and atmosphere climate model indicate that China's reductions in aerosol emission rates from 2006 to 2017 may exert a net increase in global radiative forcing of 0.09 +/- 0.03 W m(-2)and a mean warming of 0.12 +/- 0.01 degrees C in the Northern Hemisphere; and may also affect the precipitation rates in East Asia and in more distant regions. The success of Chinese policies to further reduce aerosol emissions may bring additional net warming, and this 'unmasked' warming would in turn compound the challenge and urgency of international climate mitigation efforts.

A modeling framework was used to examine gaps in understanding of seasonal and spatial heterogeneity in aerosol abundance and radiative forcing over northern South Asia, whose glimpses are revealed in observational studies. Regionally representative emissions were used in chemical transport model simulations at a spatial resolution of 60 x 60 km(2), in April, July and September, chosen as months of contrasting emissions and rainfall. Modeled aerosol abundance in northern South Asia was predominantly found to be dust and carbonaceous in April, dust and sulfate in July and sulfate and carbonaceous in September. Anthropogenic aerosols arose from energy-use emissions (from industrial sources, residential biofuel cooking, brick kilns) in all months, additionally from field burning in April, and incursion from East Asia in September. In April, carbonaceous aerosols were abundant from open burning of agricultural fields even at high altitude locations (Godavari), and of forests in the eastern Gangetic Plain (Kolkata). Direct radiative forcing and heating rate, calculated from OPAC-SBDART, using modeled aerosol fields, and corrected by MODIS AOD observations, showed regionally uniform atmospheric forcing in April, compared to that in other months, influenced by both dust and black carbon abundance. A strong spatial heterogeneity of radiative forcing and heating rate was found, with factor of 2.5-3.5 lower atmospheric forcing over the Tibet plateau than that over the Ganga Plain and Northwest in July and September. However, even over the remote Tibet plateau, there was significant anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric forcing and heating rate (45% in Apr, 75% in Sep). Wind fields showed black carbon transport from south Asia in April and east Asia in September. Further evaluation of the transport of dust and anthropogenic emissions from various source regions and their deposition in the Himalaya and Tibet, is important in understanding regional air quality and climate change over this ecosystem. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008. We find that this hiatus in warming coincides with a period of little increase in the sum of anthropogenic and natural forcings. Declining solar insolation as part of a normal eleven-year cycle, and a cyclical change from an El Nino to a La Nina dominate our measure of anthropogenic effects because rapid growth in short-lived sulfur emissions partially offsets rising greenhouse gas concentrations. As such, we find that recent global temperature records are consistent with the existing understanding of the relationship among global surface temperature, internal variability, and radiative forcing, which includes anthropogenic factors with well known warming and cooling effects.