Observational Constraint on the Contributions of Greenhouse Gas Emission and Anthropogenic Aerosol Removal to Tibetan Plateau Future Warming

Abstract

A decline of anthropogenic aerosol (AA) emission is expected worldwide over the coming decades. But the climate effects of aerosol removal and greenhouse gases (GHG) emission at regional scale are poorly distinguished and constrained. Taking the Tibetan Plateau (TP) as an instance, analyses of the state-of-the-art climate models participating in the Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project imply that while the observed warming from 1961 to 2020 is predominantly attributed to GHG emission, the future temperature rise will be influenced by the combined effects of persistent increase in GHG concentration and reduction of AA emission. Here, we develop a new constraint method considering the changed contribution of AA forcing. Constrained by detected individual external forcings, the joint contributions of GHG (1.74°C) and AA forcings (0.10°C) will lead to a warming around 1.85°C over the TP during mid-century (2041–2060) relative to 1995–2014 under SSP2-4.5 scenario, which is 0.44°C cooler than the raw projection.