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  • Review Article
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Atmospheric black carbon in the climate system

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Black carbon (BC) aerosols are short-lived climate pollutants with important, but uncertain, climate impacts. In this Review, we synthesize observations of atmospheric BC concentrations, sources, optical properties, lifetimes and climate effects, drawing comparisons with atmospheric model simulations. Isotopic fingerprinting reveals regional differences in BC sources, with biomass burning contributing 93 ± 3% in sub-Saharan Africa, 56 ± 7% in South Asia and 28 ± 5% in East Asia. Atmospheric BC loadings have declined in South America, East Asia, Europe and North America, and stabilized in Africa and South Asia owing to clean air policies and advances in technology and practices. The optical properties of BC influence its climate effects. The global-mean mass absorption coefficient (MAC550) of atmospheric BC is 12.3 ± 5.8 m2 g−1, being highest in Africa, Europe and South Asia. MAC550 is enhanced near universally by 1.6 ± 0.4 owing to ageing during long-range transport. In major emission regions, the aerosol absorption optical depth and the direct aerosol radiative forcing ratio between the bottom and the top of the atmosphere are lower in model simulations than in observations by factors of 2 and 1.5, respectively. Relative to long-term observations, model simulations estimate higher BC deposition fluxes but lower concentrations and sunlight absorption. These discrepancies have implications for the accuracy of model representations of humidity, clouds, precipitation and climate forcing. Future research should prioritize comparisons of emission inventory and model estimates with observations to enhance model accuracy and guide mitigation efforts.

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Fig. 1: The atmospheric life cycle of BC.
Fig. 2: Global distribution of BC.
Fig. 3: A comparison of EIs and bottom-up versus top-down source attributions.
Fig. 4: Regional BC mass absorption coefficient.
Fig. 5: Trends in atmospheric BC parameters since 2000.
Fig. 6: A comparison of model-based and observation-based estimates of atmospheric BC loadings.
Fig. 7: A comparison of model-based and observation-based estimates of direct aerosol radiative effect.

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Acknowledgements

Ö.G. thanks the Swedish Research Council (VR no. 2017-01601) and the Clean Air Fund (CAF no. 1616). G.M. thanks the Norwegian Research Council (grant no. 325270).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science and the Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Örjan Gustafsson, Sean Clarke & M. R. Manoj

  2. Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India

    Krishnakant Budhavant & S. K. Satheesh

  3. Maldives Climate Observatory, Hanimaadhoo, Maldives

    Krishnakant Budhavant

  4. Centre for Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), Mumbai, India

    Navinya Chimurkar

  5. Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD), Washington, DC, USA

    Gabrielle Dreyfus

  6. College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Nankai University, Nankai, China

    Xin Gong & Jianfei Peng

  7. The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    Zbigniew Klimont

  8. Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

    Klaus Klingmüller & Jos Lelieveld

  9. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Sang-Woo Kim

  10. Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Jos Lelieveld

  11. Centre for International Climate Research (CICERO), Oslo, Norway

    Gunnar Myhre

  12. Dept. of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

    H.R.C.R. Nair

  13. Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

    V. Ramanathan

  14. Department of Global Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    V. Ramanathan

  15. Forschungszentrum Juelich, Juelich, Germany

    Archita Rana

  16. Department of Chemical Engineering and the Centre for Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), Mumbai, India

    Chandra Venkataraman

  17. Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Qiang Zhang

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  1. Örjan Gustafsson
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Contributions

Ö.G. designed the study and led the assessment and writing together with M.R.M. and S.C. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Örjan Gustafsson.

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Gustafsson, Ö., Budhavant, K., Chimurkar, N. et al. Atmospheric black carbon in the climate system. Nat Rev Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-026-00773-3

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