COMPUTATION OF ANTHROPOGENIC SULFATE AEROSOL FORCING USING RADIATIVE PERTURBATION-THEORY

The radiative forcing of the climate by anthropogenic aerosols has bee n a matter of some concern for many years now, especially in the north ern hemisphere. Recently in these pages, Charlson et al. attempted to quantify this forcing. However, that calculation involved relatively c rude optical and radiative transfer models. In this paper, we use a fa r more detailed sulphate optical model, and employ radiative perturbat ion theory (a technique ideally suited to answering questions of this sort) to repeat this radiation calculation. We obtain results which ar e similar to Charlson et al., provided that proper allowance is made f or the effects of humidity.