Geophysical Research Letters (May 2024)

Larger Dust Cooling Effect Estimated From Regionally Dependent Refractive Indices

  • Hao Wang,
  • Xiaohong Liu,
  • Chenglai Wu,
  • Guangxing Lin,
  • Tie Dai,
  • Daisuke Goto,
  • Qing Bao,
  • Toshihiko Takemura,
  • Guangyu Shi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL107647
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 51, no. 9
pp. n/a – n/a

Abstract

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Abstract The dust direct radiative effect (DRE) depends strongly on the dust particle size distribution (PSD) and complex refractive index (CRI). Although recent studies constrained the dust PSD in the models, its CRI uncertainties are still large. As a result, whether dust warms or cools the climate system remains unclear. Here, we estimate the dust DRE by employing the regionally‐dependent dust CRI based on global measurements. We find that new dust CRI significantly enhances the scattering of dust in the shortwave while reduces its absorption in the longwave, which is opposite to that caused by increasing the coarse and giant dust fraction via constraining the PSD. Constraining both PSD and CRI ultimately leads to a net dust DRE of −0.68 W m−2, a cooling stronger than current model estimates.

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