Arctic air pollution

I n the face of rapid climate change in the Arctic (increasing temperatures, earlier onset of spring snowmelt, sea ice loss, etc.), it is important to improve our knowledge about processes driving these changes. In general, climate models are able to reproduce enhanced warming in the Arctic, the so-called Arctic amplification. However, discrepancies are apparent between observations and global climate model predictions of, for example, Arctic summer sea ice, resulting in significant differences between model-based and extrapolated estimates for the complete disappearance of the summer ice (Overland and Wang 2013). While increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) and associated atmosphere–ice–ocean feedbacks are major contributing factors, short-lived (with respect to chemical lifetime) climate forcers, such as absorbing (heating) aerosols like black carbon (BC), and trace gases ozone (O3) and methane, are also likely to be playing an important role (Quinn et al. 2008). Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs; e.g., BC, O3) can impact Arctic warming as a result of 