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Future global emissions of aerosols will play an important role in governing the nature and magnitude of future anthropogenic climate change. We present in this paper a number of future scenarios of emissions of black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC) by world region, which we combine with sulfate (SO4) assessed in terms of the emissions of its precursor, SO2. We find that aerosol emissions from the household and industrial sectors are likely to decline along almost all future pathways. Transportation emissions, however, are subject to complex interacting forces that can lead to either increases or decreases. Biomass burning declines in many scenarios, but the Amazon rainforests remain vulnerable if unsustainable economic growth persists. East Asia is the key region for primary aerosols, and trends in China will have a major bearing on the direction and magnitude of releases of BC (expected reductions in the range of 640--1290 Gg), OC (reductions of 520--1900 Gg), and SO2 (ranging from an increase of 21 Tg to a reduction of 30 Tg). Analysis of joint BC, OC, and SO2 emission changes identifies a number of key world regions and economic sectors that could be effectively targeted for aerosol reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is evidence that climate change induced tree mortalities in boreal and temperate forests and increased forest turnover rates (both mortality and recruitment rates) in Amazon forests. However, no study has examined China's tropical and subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests ( TEBF) that cover >26% of China's terrestrial land. The sustainability of this biome is vital to the maintenance of local ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, climatic regulation), many of which may influence patterns of atmospheric circulation and composition at regional to global scales. Here, we analyze time-series data collected from thirteen permanent plots within China's unmanaged TEBF to study whether and how this biome has changed over recent decades. We find that the numbers of individuals and species for shrub and small tree have increased since 1978, whereas the numbers of individuals and species for tree have decreased over this same time period. The shift in species composition is accompanied by a decrease in the mean diameter at breast height ( DBH) for all individuals combined. China's TEBF may thereby be transitioning from cohorts of fewer and larger individuals to ones of more and smaller individuals, which shows a unique change pattern differing from the documented. Regional-scale drying is likely responsible for the biome's reorganization. This biome-wide reconstitution would deeply impact the regimes of carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation and have implications for the sustainability of economic development in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]