GWP of aerosols is negligible: gone in a week

Dear Lakshmi,

It is not clear whether your question relates to the computation of the global warming potential, or to the role of Black Carbon (BC) in radiative forcing, or to the issue of scaling up calculations for "a particular location" to the planetary problem.

Harry is right in pointing out that the direct global warming potential of aerosols (including BC) is limited because of their relatively short residence time in the atmosphere. However, aerosols interact with clouds, and the latter do have a major impact on the global climate. In addition, please note that even if you had estimated the radiative forcing due to a whole host of processes at one location, that would still be of little relevance to the global problem.

Your best source of information on this issue, from a global perspective, remains the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), which is publicly available from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/. If you are mostly interested in the climate aspects of the problem, Volume 1 (The Physical Science Basis) will be most relevant.

Please study that document (in particular chapters 6 to 9), and then sharpen your question(s) if you require more specific help. Best regards, Michel.

@Michel

Hope not to be pedantic but the Aerosol Indirect Effects are even of shorter duration because of the short lifetime of clouds