East Asian aerosol cleanup has likely contributed to the recent acceleration in global warming

Samset, Bjørn H. and Wilcox, Laura J. and Allen, Robert J. and Stjern, Camilla W. and Lund, Marianne T. and Ahmadi, Sharar and Ekman, Annica and Elling, Maxwell T. and Fraser-Leach, Luke and Griffiths, Paul and Keeble, James and Koshiro, Tsuyoshi and Kushner, Paul and Lewinschal, Anna and Makkonen, Risto and Merikanto, Joonas and Nabat, Pierre and Narazenko, Larissa and O’Donnell, Declan and Oshima, Naga and Rumbold, Steven T. and Takemura, Toshihiko and Tsigaridis, Kostas and Westervelt, Daniel M. (2025) East Asian aerosol cleanup has likely contributed to the recent acceleration in global warming. Communications Earth & Environment, 6 (1): 543. ISSN 2662-4435

Abstract

Global surface warming has accelerated since around 2010, relative to the preceding half century1, 2–3. This has coincided with East Asian efforts to reduce air pollution through restricted atmospheric aerosol and precursor emissions4, 5. A direct link between the two has, however, not yet been established. Here we show, using a large set of simulations from eight Earth System Models, how a time-evolving 75% reduction in East Asian sulfate emissions partially unmasks greenhouse gas-driven warming and influences the spatial pattern of surface temperature change. We find a rapidly evolving global, annual mean warming of 0.07 ± 0.05 °C, sufficient to be a main driver of the uptick in global warming rate since 2010. We also find North-Pacific warming and a top-of-atmosphere radiative imbalance that are qualitatively consistent with recent observations. East Asian aerosol cleanup is thus likely a key contributor to recent global warming acceleration and to Pacific warming trends.