The Global Aerosol System and its Direct Forcing of Climate: Results From MODIS, AERONET and GOCART

Space observations from the MODIS instrument on board the Terra satellite, show in great details the spatial and seasonal variability of the global aerosol system. These spaceborne instruments distinguish fine aerosol from man-made regional pollution and biomass burning from mostly natural coarse dust and sea salt aerosol. E.g. fine regional pollution in and around the Indian sub-continent, Europe and North America; smoke from biomass burning in Southern Africa and Southern America; coarse dust from West Africa and mixed dust pollution and smoke from West and central Africa and East Asia. These regions were also studied extensively in focused field experiments and by the distributed AERONET network. The results generate the first climatology of the aerosol system, are used to derive the aerosol radiative effects and to estimate the anthropogenic component. The measurements are also used to evaluate each other and constrain aerosol transport models.