Increasingly Important Role of Russian Emissions in Modulating the Arctic Climate System

摘要

The Arctic is warming at an unprecedented rate, accelerating the melting of snow and ice. The increasing CO_2 level at the global scale is an undeniable cause of this temperature warming phenomenon. At the same time, the important role of short-lived climate forcers (SLCF; including particulate black carbon (BC), ozone and methane) in modulating the climate of Arctic has been gradually recognized since the lifetime of SLCF are much shorter than CO_(2-) The level of air pollutants over the Arctic is dominated by emissions from its neighboring continents, that is, Eurasia and North America. Compared to the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and Nordic countries which have relatively reliable emission inventories, the emissions from the Russian Federation (referred as Russia below) are regarded as highly uncertain due to the poor localization of emission sources and lacking of emission source profiles.1 As the country which possesses the largest area in the Arctic, Russia's emission sources have been attracting great attention recently. Below we highlight some key emission sectors over the high latitudinal regions (mainly from Russia) that could strongly impact the Arctic.