There has been growing interest in the potential of short-lived climate forcer (SLCF) mitigation to reduce near-term global warming. Black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) are SLCFs which change the Earth's radiative balance directly by affecting radiation, and indirectly by altering cloud properties. We used the ECHAM-HAMMOZ aerosol-climate model to study the radiative forcings due to mitigating the anthropogenic emissions of BC, OC, and SO2 from Chile and Mexico. Limiting our analysis to areas where these emissions had notable effects on both aerosol and clouds, we found that the total radiative forcings of anthropogenic aerosol emissions are different for Chile and Mexico. This was explained by differences in aerosol emissions, orography, and meteorology in these two countries. Especially the radiative forcing for Chilean emissions was influenced by the persistent stratocumulus cloud deck west of Chile. To reduce the uncertainty of our radiative forcing calculations, we nudged the wind and surface pressure toward pre-generated fields. As nudging affects the calculated effective radiative forcing (ERF), we here used the identifier ERFNDG. Our results indicate that the removal of OC and SO2 emissions caused a positive ERFNDG while the removal of BC emissions caused a positive ERFNDG for Chile, but a negative ERFNDG for Mexico. When accounting for co-emission of other aerosol compounds, reducing BC emissions led to positive ERFNDG in both countries. Compared to China, the removal of anthropogenic SO2 emissions in Chile and Mexico caused a much larger global average ERFNDG per emitted unit mass of SO2.

Impacts of absorbing and scattering aerosols on global energy balance are investigated with a global climate model. A series of sensitivity experiments perturbing emissions of black carbon and sulfate aerosols individually is conducted with the model to explore how components of global energy budget change in response to the instantaneous radiative forcing due to the two types of aerosols. It is demonstrated how differing vertical structures of the instantaneous radiative forcing between the two aerosols induce distinctively different proportions of fast and slow climate responses through different energy redistribution into atmosphere and surface. These characteristics are quantified in the form of the whole picture of global energy budget perturbations normalized by the top-of-atmosphere instantaneous radiative forcing. The energy budget perturbation per unit instantaneous forcing thus quantified reveals relative magnitudes of changes to different component fluxes in restoring atmospheric and surface energy balances through fast and slow responses. The normalized picture then directly links the initial forcing to the eventual climate responses, thereby explaining how starkly different responses of the global-mean temperature and precipitation are induced by the two types of aerosols. The study underscores a critical need for better quantifications of the forcings' vertical structure and atmospheric rapid adjustment for reliable estimates of climatic impact of absorbing and scattering aerosols. In particular, cloud responses through the indirect and semidirect effects and the sensible heat decrease in response to stabilized atmosphere due to the black carbon heating are identified as key uncertain components in the global energy budget perturbation. Plain Language Summary The minute particles suspended in the atmosphere, called aerosols, have warming or cooling impacts on climate depending on their color that determines their ability to scatter or absorb the sunlight. The black aerosols, like black carbon, enhance the heating on atmosphere and reduce the sunlight reaching the surface through absorbing the sunlight, while the white aerosols, like sulfate, directly cool the surface with little influence on atmosphere through scattering the sunlight. This study analyzes simulations with a global climate model to quantify how the two types of aerosols with such different characteristics modulate the Earth's energy budget differently to induce distinctively different responses of the global-mean temperature and precipitation. The results explain why the global temperature response to perturbations of black carbon tends to be muted in contrast to the pronounced response to perturbations of sulfate. The energy budget picture also illustrates how increased black carbon can increase and decrease the global precipitation through two competing pathways to result a net decrease while increased sulfate monotonically decreases the global precipitation. The findings of this study provide a theoretical basis for better quantifying the climate change driven by future emission changes of different types of aerosols.