Brown carbon from biomass burning imposes strong circum-Arctic warming

Abstract

Rapid warming in the Arctic has a huge impact on the global environment. Atmospheric brown carbon (BrC) is one of the least understood and uncertain warming agents due to a scarcity of observations. Here, we performed direct observations of atmospheric BrC and quantified its light-absorbing properties during a 2-month circum-Arctic cruise in summer of 2017. Through observation-constrained modeling, we show that BrC, mainly originated from biomass burning in the mid- to high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (∼60%), can be a strong warming agent in the Arctic region, especially in the summer, with an average radiative forcing of ∼90 mW m−2 (∼30% relative to black carbon). As climate change is projected to increase the frequency, intensity, and spread of wildfires, we expect BrC to play an increasing role in Arctic warming in the future.