A-Train Revises Estimates of Aerosol Direct Effects

A new paper authored by Alex Matus in our research group uses A-Train observations to provide new estimates of the radiative effects of aerosols on the climate under all sky and surface type conditions.  The results suggest that global aerosol direct radiative forcing is significantly lower than previous observational estimates, that are traditionally restricted to clear-sky ocean regions. The study also suggests that models exhibit significant regional errors in aerosol forcing owing to biases in cloud cover.