Analysis of polarimetric satellite measurements suggests stronger cooling due to aerosol-cloud interactions

Abstract

Anthropogenic aerosol emissions lead to an increase in the amount of Cloud Condensation Nuclei and consequently an increase in cloud droplet number concentration and cloud albedo. The cor-responding negative radiative forcing due to aerosol cloud interactions (RFaci) is one of the most uncertain radiative forcing terms as reported in the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We show that previous observation-based studies underestimate aerosol-cloud interactions because they used measurements of aerosol optical properties that are not directly related to cloud formation and are hampered by measurement uncertainties. We have overcome this problem by the use of new polarimetric satellite retrievals of the relevant aerosol properties (aerosol number, size, shape). The resulting estimate of RFaci= -1.14 Wm−2(range be-tween -0.84 and -1.72 Wm−2) is more than a factor 2 stronger than the IPCC estimate that includes