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. 2010 Feb 23;107(8):3382-7.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.0906548107. Epub 2010 Feb 3.

Attribution of climate forcing to economic sectors

Nadine Unger  1 , Tami C Bond, James S Wang, Dorothy M Koch, Surabi Menon, Drew T Shindell, Susanne Bauer
Affiliations

Attribution of climate forcing to economic sectors

Nadine Unger et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

A much-cited bar chart provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change displays the climate impact, as expressed by radiative forcing in watts per meter squared, of individual chemical species. The organization of the chart reflects the history of atmospheric chemistry, in which investigators typically focused on a single species of interest. However, changes in pollutant emissions and concentrations are a symptom, not a cause, of the primary driver of anthropogenic climate change: human activity. In this paper, we suggest organizing the bar chart according to drivers of change-that is, by economic sector. Climate impacts of tropospheric ozone, fine aerosols, aerosol-cloud interactions, methane, and long-lived greenhouse gases are considered. We quantify the future evolution of the total radiative forcing due to perpetual constant year 2000 emissions by sector, most relevant for the development of climate policy now, and focus on two specific time points, near-term at 2020 and long-term at 2100. Because sector profiles differ greatly, this approach fosters the development of smart climate policy and is useful to identify effective opportunities for rapid mitigation of anthropogenic radiative forcing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Summary of the future evolution over the coming century of total radiative forcing (including SLS, AIE, CH4 and LLGHGs) due to perpetual constant year 2000 emissions by sector. The SLS and AIE values remain constant across the time period. A positive RF means that removal will result in climate cooling and vice versa.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Radiative forcing due to perpetual constant year 2000 emissions grouped by sector at (a) 2020 (b) 2100 showing the contribution from each species. The net sum of total radiative forcing is indicated by the title of each bar. A positive RF means that removal will result in climate cooling and vice versa.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Spatial distribution of the net sum of the future instantaneous radiative forcing at 2100 by short-lived species (O3, sulfate, nitrate, black carbon, organic carbon), CH4 direct and indirect effects and LLGHGs (CO2 and N2O) due to perpetual constant year 2000 emissions by sector. Units are × 100 Wm-2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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