Science Update: Aerosol Masking Effect Previously Underestimated on Overheated Earth

June 23, 2021

Washington Post, 16 June 2021: Earth is now trapping an ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, NASA says

Nature Communications, 15 June 2021: Significant underestimation of radiative forcing by aerosol–cloud interactions derived from satellite-based methods

From Jia et al. (2021): The RFaci calculated from a MODIS-retrieved aerosol optical depth (AOD) and CERES-retrieved cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) data pairs (Aero_Cld_Modis), and from MERRA-2 re-analyzed AOD and CERES-retrieved Nd data pairs for b the scenario that aerosol and cloud retrievals are simultaneously successful (Aero_Cld, including same cloud samples with Aero_Cld_Modis), c the scenario that only cloud retrievals are successful (Cld), and d the scenario including all ambient clouds (All_Cld). e Modeled RFaci from Yu et al.44. The respective RFaci values for different regions are also listed in Supplementary Table 1.