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Radiative Forcing and Global Warming

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Handbook of Air Quality and Climate Change

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Abstract

Fundamental to understanding climate change is understanding the energy budget between solar and infrared radiation. Radiative forcing represents the energy imbalance. Current climate change is caused by an imbalance of about 1% of the global average energy budget. Each greenhouse gas causes an energy imbalance by absorbing infrared radiation at certain wavelengths. Suspended particulate matters, “aerosols,” affect the energy budget primarily by scattering or absorbing solar radiation in the broad wavelength range, and through their role as cloud nuclei, they also alter the scattering and absorption properties of solar and infrared radiation in clouds. There are a few definitions of radiative forcing, and it is important to understand which definition is being used. In the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the definition of radiative forcing primarily used has changed as our understanding of climate change has evolved. Climate sensitivity is defined as the change in surface air temperature for a doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, but the temperature change per radiative forcing is different for each composition and is indexed by its relative ratio, efficiency, to the CO2 case. Time integral of radiative forcing for an instantaneous 1 kg emission of the composition of interest relative to CO2 is the global warming potential (GWP), which is commonly used to calculate CO2 equivalent emissions.

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Acknowledgments

The writing of this chapter was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (grant no. JPMEERF21S12010) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency provided by the Ministry of Environment of Japan, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (grant no. JP19H05669).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Toshihiko Takemura

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  1. Toshihiko Takemura
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Correspondence to Toshihiko Takemura .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nat'l Inst for Env Studies, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Hajime Akimoto

  2. National Institute for Environ Studies, Tsukuba,Ibaraki, Japan

    Hiroshi Tanimoto

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Takemura, T. (2022). Radiative Forcing and Global Warming. In: Akimoto, H., Tanimoto, H. (eds) Handbook of Air Quality and Climate Change. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2527-8_28-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2527-8_28-1

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