Extended Data Fig. 4: Spatial distribution of climatic and economic impacts introduced by anthropogenic sulfate aerosol emissions.

Same as Fig. 2 but shows the results for the impacts of anthropogenic sulfate aerosols. (a) Changes in aerosol optical depth at 550 nm (unitless) in response to anthropogenic sulfate aerosols averaged over 2000–19. (b) Changes in surface air temperature in response to anthropogenic sulfate aerosols averaged over 2000-19. (c) The year that year 2010 temperature (averaged over 2000-19) would have occurred without anthropogenic sulfate aerosols. Results are calculated by comparing year 2010 temperature from the control scenario (that is, With-Aerosol scenario) with historical temperature (20-year running average) derived from the scenario with anthropogenic sulfate emissions set to 1850 levels (that is, No-Sulfate scenario); difference between 2010 and the central year of the matched time period is illustrated. (d) Country-level estimates of changes in annual GDP in response to anthropogenic sulfate-induced cooling averaged over 2000-2019 based on Burke et al.⁴ response functions (see Methods). Grid markings in (b) and (c) indicate regions that sulfate-induced temperature changes are not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level via one-sample t-test with an effective sample size adjusted for autocorrelation³². Countries and regions with missing value are shaded in grey in (d).