Manmade
Pollutants May Be Driving Earth’s Tropical Belt Expansion
UC
Riverside-led team identifies black carbon and tropospheric ozone as most
likely drivers of large-scale atmospheric circulation change in the Northern
Hemisphere tropics.
RIVERSIDE,
Calif. — Black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone, both manmade pollutants
emitted predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere’s low- to mid-latitudes, are
most likely pushing the boundary of the tropics further poleward in that
hemisphere, new research by a team of scientists shows.
While
stratospheric ozone depletion has already been shown to be the primary driver of
the expansion of the tropics in the Southern Hemisphere, the researchers are
the first to report that black carbon and tropospheric ozone are the most
likely primary drivers of the tropical expansion observed in the Northern
Hemisphere.
Led by
climatologist Robert J. Allen, an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the
University of California, Riverside, the research team notes that an unabated
tropical belt expansion would impact large-scale atmospheric circulation,
especially in the subtropics and mid-latitudes.
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