The impact of aerosols on the environment

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Climate change is an important issue for Canadians as it has the potential to drastically affect their quality of life. It is generally accepted that global warming can mostly be attributed to changes in the radiative forcing (changes to the heat balance between incoming solar radiation and Earth's outgoing thermal radiation) due to greenhouse gases and aerosols. Aerosols directly affect global climate by scattering and absorbing solar radiation, while they indirectly affect climate by changing the properties of clouds (i.e., their reflectivity and lifetime). However, the magnitude of the effect of aerosols on radiative forcing is complex and uncertain. The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows that the uncertainty in the total net anthropogenic radiative forcing is dominated by the uncertainty in the aerosol radiative forcing. It is important that the sources of aerosols are quantified and that the role of aerosols in climate change is understood so that the uncertainty in the forcing estimates can be reduced. This progress is necessary so that appropriate climate policies can be made and that emission control technologies can be developed and improved.