Terje Berntsen

Emissions of Asian Anthropogenic Aerosols (A3) are rapidly changing - most notably black carbon and sulphate aerosol precursors from India and China. The resulting range of climate impacts and societal hazards may dominate regionally over greenhouse gas induced trends for the next several decades, but the implications are as yet insufficiently explored. CATHY (Climate implications of rapid changes in Asian Anthropogenic Aerosol emissions: Temperature, Hydrological cycle and variabilitY) tackles the urgent need for quantifying climate related hazards resulting from ongoing and projected changes in A3 emissions.

Global temperatures are rising due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In addition to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, human activity has changed the composition of particles in the atmosphere. These have masked some of the warming caused by the greenhouse gases. How large is this cooling effect, and how has it changed over time?