Assessment of Dust and Non-Dust Aerosols Over South Asia in Cmip6 Models: Implications for Surface Temperature and Radiative Flux Changes

Abstract

Aerosol-Climate Interaction over South Asia remains highly uncertain due to the complex contributions of natural and anthropogenic aerosols. South Asia is one of the most aerosol-dense regions globally, with anthropogenic aerosols a major driver of regional climate change (Ramachandran et al., 2022). Although previous studies have improved our understanding related to aerosol variability, but the contribution of dust, non-dust, and anthropogenic contributions to total AOD using multiple CMIP6 ESM models over South Asia is limited. This study examines the seasonal variability of dust, non-dust, and anthropogenic aerosols and attempts to bifurcate the radiative and non-radiative fluxes responsible for anthropogenic aerosol effects on surface temperature over South Asia using seven CMIP6 ESMs for the period 1995-2014. Model performance is evaluated against multiple datasets, including MERRA-2, MODIS, CRU, and AERONET...