ACE-Asia
Asian Pacific Regional
Aerosol Characterization Experiment
Radiative Forcing due to Anthropogenic Aerosols
Over the Asian Pacific Region

Project Summary
Atmospheric
aerosol particles affect the Earth's radiative balance directly by scattering or
absorbing light, and indirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN),
thereby influencing the albedo and life-time of clouds. At this time,
tropospheric aerosols pose one of the largest uncertainties in model
calculations of the climate forcing due to man-made changes in the composition
of the atmosphere. Accurately quantifying the direct and indirect effect of
anthropogenic aerosols on the radiative forcing of climate requires an
integrated research program that includes:
- in-situ
measurements covering a globally representative range of natural and
anthropogenically perturbed environments to determine the chemical, physical,
and radiative properties of the major aerosol types, the relationships among
these properties and the processes controlling them,
- satellite
observations to quantify the temporally and spatially varying aerosol
distributions, and
- chemical
transport and radiative transfer models to calculate radiative forcing by
aerosols and to provide a prognostic analysis of future radiative forcing
and climate response under various emission scenarios.

Further information about ACE-Asia can be found on the
Project Website (saga.pmel.noaa.gov/aceasia/) or from members of the ACE-Asia
Executive Committee:
Barry
J. Huebert, lead scientist, University of Hawaii, USA, huebert@soest.hawaii.edu
Timothy S. Bates, NOAA/PMEL, USA, bates@pmel.noaa.gov
Thomas Choularton, University of Manchester, UK, t.choularton@umist.ac.uk
John Gras, CSIRO, Australia, john.gras@dar.csiro.au
Kimitaka Kawamura, Hokkaido University, Japan, kawamura@soya.lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp
Young-Joon Kim, KJIST, Korea, yjkim@env.kjist.ac.kr