Longitudinal variability of black carbon vertical profiles

Black carbon (BC) aerosol contributes substantially to both climate forcing and climate forcing uncertainty. An important source of this uncertainty derives from the difficulty in predicting BC's global abundance and vertical distribution. Here we present a multi-year record of black carbon (BC) vertical concentration profiles from both sides of the Atlantic, obtained from airborne Single Particle Soot Photometers (SP2s) flown on the NASA DC-8, and the DLR Falcon research aircraft from the CONCERT, ACCESS, DC3, SEAC4RS, and SALTRACE campaigns. The measurements constrain the relative rates of BC transport/removal from, and zonal mixing in, the upper troposphere, as well as the range of BC loadings in these regions. They also constrain the time-rates of change of BC loads in altitudes at which it is a highly efficient (although sparse) climate forcer, and a relatively long-lived aerosol tracer. We find that concentration of BC in the upper troposphere can vary by a factor 10. Over the Northern mid-latitudes concentrations are however consistent to a fraction of this range over wide longitudinal ranges, over month-long timescales. The data show that BC becomes zonally mixed here starting at 500 hPa and extending to near the tropopause. These results imply broader value than previously associated with measured vertical profiles in constraining global scale BC loadings aloft.