Articles | Volume 17, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5477-2017
© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5477-2017
© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Research article
| 
28 Apr 2017
Research article |
| 28 Apr 2017
Effects of 3-D thermal radiation on the development of a shallow cumulus cloud field
Carolin Klinger
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Fakultät für Physik, Meteorologisches Institut München, Munich, Germany
currently at: Chemical Sciences Division, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), Boulder, CO, USA
Bernhard Mayer
Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Fakultät für Physik, Meteorologisches Institut München, Munich, Germany
Fabian Jakub
Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Fakultät für Physik, Meteorologisches Institut München, Munich, Germany
Tobias Zinner
Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Fakultät für Physik, Meteorologisches Institut München, Munich, Germany
Seung-Bu Park
Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Pierre Gentine
Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
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The German research aircraft HALO took part in the research campaign EUREC4A in January and February 2020. The focus area was the tropical Atlantic east of the island of Barbados. We describe the characteristics of the 15 research flights, provide auxiliary information, derive combined cloud mask products from all instruments that observe clouds on board the aircraft, and provide code examples that help new users of the data to get started.
Ana Bastos, René Orth, Markus Reichstein, Philippe Ciais, Nicolas Viovy, Sönke Zaehle, Peter Anthoni, Almut Arneth, Pierre Gentine, Emilie Joetzjer, Sebastian Lienert, Tammas Loughran, Patrick C. McGuire, Sungmin O, Julia Pongratz, and Stephen Sitch
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Marc Schwaerzel, Dominik Brunner, Fabian Jakub, Claudia Emde, Brigitte Buchmann, Alexis Berne, and Gerrit Kuhlmann
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NO2 maps from airborne imaging remote sensing often appear much smoother than one would expect from high-resolution model simulations of NO2 over cities, despite the small ground-pixel size of the sensors. Our case study over Zurich, using the newly implemented building module of the MYSTIC radiative transfer solver, shows that the 3D effect can explain part of the smearing and that building shadows cause a noticeable underestimation and noise in the measured NO2 columns.
Bjorn Stevens, Sandrine Bony, David Farrell, Felix Ament, Alan Blyth, Christopher Fairall, Johannes Karstensen, Patricia K. Quinn, Sabrina Speich, Claudia Acquistapace, Franziska Aemisegger, Anna Lea Albright, Hugo Bellenger, Eberhard Bodenschatz, Kathy-Ann Caesar, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Gijs de Boer, Julien Delanoë, Leif Denby, Florian Ewald, Benjamin Fildier, Marvin Forde, Geet George, Silke Gross, Martin Hagen, Andrea Hausold, Karen J. Heywood, Lutz Hirsch, Marek Jacob, Friedhelm Jansen, Stefan Kinne, Daniel Klocke, Tobias Kölling, Heike Konow, Marie Lothon, Wiebke Mohr, Ann Kristin Naumann, Louise Nuijens, Léa Olivier, Robert Pincus, Mira Pöhlker, Gilles Reverdin, Gregory Roberts, Sabrina Schnitt, Hauke Schulz, A. Pier Siebesma, Claudia Christine Stephan, Peter Sullivan, Ludovic Touzé-Peiffer, Jessica Vial, Raphaela Vogel, Paquita Zuidema, Nicola Alexander, Lyndon Alves, Sophian Arixi, Hamish Asmath, Gholamhossein Bagheri, Katharina Baier, Adriana Bailey, Dariusz Baranowski, Alexandre Baron, Sébastien Barrau, Paul A. Barrett, Frédéric Batier, Andreas Behrendt, Arne Bendinger, Florent Beucher, Sebastien Bigorre, Edmund Blades, Peter Blossey, Olivier Bock, Steven Böing, Pierre Bosser, Denis Bourras, Pascale Bouruet-Aubertot, Keith Bower, Pierre Branellec, Hubert Branger, Michal Brennek, Alan Brewer, Pierre-Etienne Brilouet, Björn Brügmann, Stefan A. Buehler, Elmo Burke, Ralph Burton, Radiance Calmer, Jean-Christophe Canonici, Xavier Carton, Gregory Cato Jr., Jude Andre Charles, Patrick Chazette, Yanxu Chen, Michal T. Chilinski, Thomas Choularton, Patrick Chuang, Shamal Clarke, Hugh Coe, Céline Cornet, Pierre Coutris, Fleur Couvreux, Susanne Crewell, Timothy Cronin, Zhiqiang Cui, Yannis Cuypers, Alton Daley, Gillian M. Damerell, Thibaut Dauhut, Hartwig Deneke, Jean-Philippe Desbios, Steffen Dörner, Sebastian Donner, Vincent Douet, Kyla Drushka, Marina Dütsch, André Ehrlich, Kerry Emanuel, Alexandros Emmanouilidis, Jean-Claude Etienne, Sheryl Etienne-Leblanc, Ghislain Faure, Graham Feingold, Luca Ferrero, Andreas Fix, Cyrille Flamant, Piotr Jacek Flatau, Gregory R. Foltz, Linda Forster, Iulian Furtuna, Alan Gadian, Joseph Galewsky, Martin Gallagher, Peter Gallimore, Cassandra Gaston, Chelle Gentemann, Nicolas Geyskens, Andreas Giez, John Gollop, Isabelle Gouirand, Christophe Gourbeyre, Dörte de Graaf, Geiske E. de Groot, Robert Grosz, Johannes Güttler, Manuel Gutleben, Kashawn Hall, George Harris, Kevin C. Helfer, Dean Henze, Calvert Herbert, Bruna Holanda, Antonio Ibanez-Landeta, Janet Intrieri, Suneil Iyer, Fabrice Julien, Heike Kalesse, Jan Kazil, Alexander Kellman, Abiel T. Kidane, Ulrike Kirchner, Marcus Klingebiel, Mareike Körner, Leslie Ann Kremper, Jan Kretzschmar, Ovid Krüger, Wojciech Kumala, Armin Kurz, Pierre L'Hégaret, Matthieu Labaste, Tom Lachlan-Cope, Arlene Laing, Peter Landschützer, Theresa Lang, Diego Lange, Ingo Lange, Clément Laplace, Gauke Lavik, Rémi Laxenaire, Caroline Le Bihan, Mason Leandro, Nathalie Lefevre, Marius Lena, Donald Lenschow, Qiang Li, Gary Lloyd, Sebastian Los, Niccolò Losi, Oscar Lovell, Christopher Luneau, Przemyslaw Makuch, Szymon Malinowski, Gaston Manta, Eleni Marinou, Nicholas Marsden, Sebastien Masson, Nicolas Maury, Bernhard Mayer, Margarette Mayers-Als, Christophe Mazel, Wayne McGeary, James C. McWilliams, Mario Mech, Melina Mehlmann, Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Theresa Mieslinger, Andreas Minikin, Peter Minnett, Gregor Möller, Yanmichel Morfa Avalos, Caroline Muller, Ionela Musat, Anna Napoli, Almuth Neuberger, Christophe Noisel, David Noone, Freja Nordsiek, Jakub L. Nowak, Lothar Oswald, Douglas J. Parker, Carolyn Peck, Renaud Person, Miriam Philippi, Albert Plueddemann, Christopher Pöhlker, Veronika Pörtge, Ulrich Pöschl, Lawrence Pologne, Michał Posyniak, Marc Prange, Estefanía Quiñones Meléndez, Jule Radtke, Karim Ramage, Jens Reimann, Lionel Renault, Klaus Reus, Ashford Reyes, Joachim Ribbe, Maximilian Ringel, Markus Ritschel, Cesar B. Rocha, Nicolas Rochetin, Johannes Röttenbacher, Callum Rollo, Haley Royer, Pauline Sadoulet, Leo Saffin, Sanola Sandiford, Irina Sandu, Michael Schäfer, Vera Schemann, Imke Schirmacher, Oliver Schlenczek, Jerome Schmidt, Marcel Schröder, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, Andrea Sealy, Christoph J. Senff, Ilya Serikov, Samkeyat Shohan, Elizabeth Siddle, Alexander Smirnov, Florian Späth, Branden Spooner, M. Katharina Stolla, Wojciech Szkółka, Simon P. de Szoeke, Stéphane Tarot, Eleni Tetoni, Elizabeth Thompson, Jim Thomson, Lorenzo Tomassini, Julien Totems, Alma Anna Ubele, Leonie Villiger, Jan von Arx, Thomas Wagner, Andi Walther, Ben Webber, Manfred Wendisch, Shanice Whitehall, Anton Wiltshire, Allison A. Wing, Martin Wirth, Jonathan Wiskandt, Kevin Wolf, Ludwig Worbes, Ethan Wright, Volker Wulfmeyer, Shanea Young, Chidong Zhang, Dongxiao Zhang, Florian Ziemen, Tobias Zinner, and Martin Zöger
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 4067–4119, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4067-2021, 2021
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The EUREC4A field campaign, designed to test hypothesized mechanisms by which clouds respond to warming and benchmark next-generation Earth-system models, is presented. EUREC4A comprised roughly 5 weeks of measurements in the downstream winter trades of the North Atlantic – eastward and southeastward of Barbados. It was the first campaign that attempted to characterize the full range of processes and scales influencing trade wind clouds.
Florian Ewald, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, Julien Delanoë, Stuart Fox, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 5029–5047, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-5029-2021, 2021
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In this study, we show how solar radiance observations can be used to validate and further constrain ice cloud microphysics retrieved from the synergy of radar–lidar measurements. Since most radar–lidar retrievals rely on a global assumption about the ice particle shape, ice water content and particle size biases are to be expected in individual cloud regimes. In this work, we identify and correct these biases by reconciling simulated and measured solar radiation reflected from these clouds.
Ren Wang, Pierre Gentine, Jiabo Yin, Lijuan Chen, Jianyao Chen, and Longhui Li
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 3805–3818, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-3805-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-3805-2021, 2021
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Assessment of changes in the global water cycle has been a challenge. This study estimated long-term global latent heat and sensible heat fluxes for recent decades using machine learning and ground observations. The results found that the decline in evaporative fraction was typically accompanied by an increase in long-term runoff in over 27.06 % of the global land areas. The observation-driven findings emphasized that surface vegetation has great impacts in regulating water and energy cycles.
Nina Črnivec and Bernhard Mayer
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 3663–3682, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3663-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-3663-2021, 2021
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This study aims to advance the cloud–radiation interplay treatment in global weather and climate prediction, focusing on cloud horizontal inhomogeneity misrepresentation. We explore the potential of the Tripleclouds method for diverse cloud types, namely the stratocumulus, cirrus and cumulonimbus. The validity of global cloud variability estimate with various condensate distribution assumptions is assessed. Optimizations for overcast and extremely heterogeneous cloudiness are further endorsed.
Andrew F. Feldman, Daniel J. Short Gianotti, Alexandra G. Konings, Pierre Gentine, and Dara Entekhabi
Biogeosciences, 18, 831–847, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-831-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-831-2021, 2021
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We quantify global plant water uptake durations after rainfall using satellite-based plant water content measurements. In wetter regions, plant water uptake occurs within a day due to rapid coupling between soil and plant water content. Drylands show multi-day plant water uptake after rain pulses, providing widespread evidence for slow rehydration responses and pulse-driven growth responses. Our results suggest that drylands are sensitive to projected shifts in rainfall intensity and frequency.
Manuel Schlund, Axel Lauer, Pierre Gentine, Steven C. Sherwood, and Veronika Eyring
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 1233–1258, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1233-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1233-2020, 2020
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As an important measure of climate change, the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) describes the change in surface temperature after a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) show a wide range in ECS. Emergent constraints are a technique to reduce uncertainties in ECS with observational data. Emergent constraints developed with data from CMIP phase 5 show reduced skill and higher ECS ranges when applied to CMIP6 data.
Manuel Gutleben, Silke Groß, Martin Wirth, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12313–12327, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12313-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12313-2020, 2020
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Airborne lidar measurements in the vicinity of Barbados are used to investigate radiative effects of long-range-transported Saharan air layers. Derived atmospheric heating rates indicate that observed enhanced water vapor concentrations inside these layers are the main drivers for dust vertical mixing inside the layers. Additionally, they may play a major role for the suppression of subjacent convective cloud development.
Nina Črnivec and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10733–10755, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10733-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10733-2020, 2020
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Unresolved interaction between clouds and atmospheric radiation is a source of uncertainty in weather and climate models. The present study highlights the potential of the state-of-the-art Tripleclouds radiative solver for shallow cumulus clouds, exposing the significance of properly representing subgrid cloud horizontal heterogeneity. The Tripleclouds concept was thereby incorporated in the widely employed δ-Eddington two-stream radiation scheme within the comprehensive libRadtran library.
Karina von Schuckmann, Lijing Cheng, Matthew D. Palmer, James Hansen, Caterina Tassone, Valentin Aich, Susheel Adusumilli, Hugo Beltrami, Tim Boyer, Francisco José Cuesta-Valero, Damien Desbruyères, Catia Domingues, Almudena García-García, Pierre Gentine, John Gilson, Maximilian Gorfer, Leopold Haimberger, Masayoshi Ishii, Gregory C. Johnson, Rachel Killick, Brian A. King, Gottfried Kirchengast, Nicolas Kolodziejczyk, John Lyman, Ben Marzeion, Michael Mayer, Maeva Monier, Didier Paolo Monselesan, Sarah Purkey, Dean Roemmich, Axel Schweiger, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Andrew Shepherd, Donald A. Slater, Andrea K. Steiner, Fiammetta Straneo, Mary-Louise Timmermans, and Susan E. Wijffels
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 2013–2041, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2013-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2013-2020, 2020
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Understanding how much and where the heat is distributed in the Earth system is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming oceans, atmosphere and land, rising temperatures and sea level, and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to obtain the Earth heat inventory over the period 1960–2018.
Linda Forster, Meinhard Seefeldner, Andreas Baumgartner, Tobias Kölling, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 3977–3991, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3977-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-3977-2020, 2020
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We present a procedure for both the geometric and absolute radiometric characterization of the weather-proof RGB camera HaloCamRAW, which is part of our automated halo observation system HaloCam, designed for the quantitative analysis of halo displays. By comparing the calibrated HaloCamRAW radiances of a 22° halo scene with radiative transfer simulations, we demonstrate the potential of developing a retrieval method for ice crystal properties, such as size, shape, and surface roughness.
Lucas Höppler, Felix Gödde, Manuel Gutleben, Tobias Kölling, Bernhard Mayer, and Tobias Zinner
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2020-49, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2020-49, 2020
Publication in AMT not foreseen
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Clouds are considered as two-dimensional in many climate and weather models. This approach creates errors due to wrongly calculated solar or terrestrial radiative transfer. In order to reduce these errors, realistic three-dimensional clouds need to be retrieved or reproduced. This paper shows an approach to retrieve realistic three-dimensional clouds from an airplane, by combining the strengths of several active and passive remote sensing instruments.
Paul Ockenfuß, Claudia Emde, Bernhard Mayer, and Germar Bernhard
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1961–1976, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1961-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1961-2020, 2020
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We model solar radiation as it would be measured on the Earth's surface in the core shadow of a total solar eclipse. Subsequently, we compare our results to observations during the total eclipse 2017 for ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Moreover, we analyze the effect of the surface reflectance, the ozone profile, aerosol and the topography and give a visualization of the prevailing photons paths in the atmosphere during the eclipse.
Pascal Polonik, Christoph Knote, Tobias Zinner, Florian Ewald, Tobias Kölling, Bernhard Mayer, Meinrat O. Andreae, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Thomas Klimach, Christoph Mahnke, Sergej Molleker, Christopher Pöhlker, Mira L. Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, Daniel Rosenfeld, Christiane Voigt, Ralf Weigel, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1591–1605, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1591-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1591-2020, 2020
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A realistic representation of cloud–aerosol interactions is central to accurate climate projections. Here we combine observations collected during the ACRIDICON-CHUVA campaign with chemistry-transport simulations to evaluate the model’s ability to represent the indirect effects of biomass burning aerosol on cloud microphysics. We find an upper limit for the model sensitivity on cloud condensation nuclei concentrations well below the levels reached during the burning season in the Amazon Basin.
Hans Grob, Claudia Emde, Matthias Wiegner, Meinhard Seefeldner, Linda Forster, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 239–258, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-239-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-239-2020, 2020
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Polarimetry has been established as an enhancement to classical photometry in aerosol remote sensing over the past years. We propose a fast and exact radiometric and polarimetric calibration method for polarized photometers. Additionally, a technique for correcting an alt-azimuthal mount is introduced.
These methods are applied to measurements obtained with our SSARA instrument during the A-LIFE field campaign. For 2 d, the data are subjected to an inversion of aerosol optical properties.
Pierre Gentine, Adam Massmann, Benjamin R. Lintner, Sayed Hamed Alemohammad, Rong Fu, Julia K. Green, Daniel Kennedy, and Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 4171–4197, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4171-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4171-2019, 2019
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Land–atmosphere interactions are key for the exchange of water, energy, and carbon dioxide, especially in the tropics. We here review some of the recent findings on land–atmosphere interactions in the tropics and where we see potential challenges and paths forward.
Paul C. Stoy, Tarek S. El-Madany, Joshua B. Fisher, Pierre Gentine, Tobias Gerken, Stephen P. Good, Anne Klosterhalfen, Shuguang Liu, Diego G. Miralles, Oscar Perez-Priego, Angela J. Rigden, Todd H. Skaggs, Georg Wohlfahrt, Ray G. Anderson, A. Miriam J. Coenders-Gerrits, Martin Jung, Wouter H. Maes, Ivan Mammarella, Matthias Mauder, Mirco Migliavacca, Jacob A. Nelson, Rafael Poyatos, Markus Reichstein, Russell L. Scott, and Sebastian Wolf
Biogeosciences, 16, 3747–3775, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3747-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-16-3747-2019, 2019
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Key findings are the nearly optimal response of T to atmospheric water vapor pressure deficits across methods and scales. Additionally, the notion that T / ET intermittently approaches 1, which is a basis for many partitioning methods, does not hold for certain methods and ecosystems. To better constrain estimates of E and T from combined ET measurements, we propose a combination of independent measurement techniques to better constrain E and T at the ecosystem scale.
Nina Črnivec and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 8083–8100, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8083-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8083-2019, 2019
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The interaction between radiation and clouds represents a source of uncertainty in numerical weather prediction (NWP), due to both intrinsic problems of one-dimensional radiation schemes and poor representation of clouds. The underlying question addressed in this study is how large the bias is of radiative heating rates in NWP models for shallow cumulus clouds and how it scales with various parameters, such as solar zenith angle, surface albedo, cloud cover and liquid water path.
Carolin Klinger, Graham Feingold, and Takanobu Yamaguchi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 6295–6313, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6295-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6295-2019, 2019
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The effect of 1-D and 3-D thermal radiation on cloud droplet growth in shallow cumulus clouds is investigated using large eddy simulations with size-resolved cloud microphysics. A two-step approach is used for separating microphysical effects from dynamical feedbacks. In a parcel framework the main effect on rain production arises from recirculating parcels. Large eddy simulations show that radiative effects on dynamics are stronger than on microphysics, as far as rain production is concerned.
Wen Li Zhao, Yu Jiu Xiong, Kyaw Tha Paw U, Pierre Gentine, Baoyu Chen, and Guo Yu Qiu
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2019-160, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2019-160, 2019
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Accurate evapotranspiration (ET) estimation requires an in-depth identification of uncertainty sources. Using high density eddy covariance observations, we evaluated the effects of resistances on ET estimation and discussed possible solutions. The results show that more complex resistance parameterizations leads to more uncertainty, although prior calibration can improve the ET estimates and that a new model without resistance parameterization introduces less uncertainty into the ET estimation.
Tobias Zinner, Ulrich Schwarz, Tobias Kölling, Florian Ewald, Evelyn Jäkel, Bernhard Mayer, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 1167–1181, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1167-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1167-2019, 2019
Florian Ewald, Tobias Zinner, Tobias Kölling, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 1183–1206, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1183-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1183-2019, 2019
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This paper presents a new method for gaining insights into the vertical evolution of cloud droplet effective radii by using reflected solar radiation from cloud sides. The paper investigates how bi-spectral effective radius retrievals are affected by unknown cloud surface orientations and presents a method to mitigate this effect. Based on these findings, this study develops a statistical effective radius retrieval for airborne, side-looking imaging sensors.
Tobias Kölling, Tobias Zinner, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 1155–1166, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1155-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-1155-2019, 2019
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Imaging technology allows us to quickly gather information on larger cloud fields. Unlike using lidar or radar, it is difficult to obtain accurate position information about the observed clouds. This work presents a method to retrieve the missing position information using RGB images from an airborne video camera. Using field campaign data, we observe and explain a median offset of 126 m compared to lidar data and show that systematic errors across the measurement swath are well below 50 m.
Wouter H. Maes, Pierre Gentine, Niko E. C. Verhoest, and Diego G. Miralles
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 925–948, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-925-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-925-2019, 2019
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Potential evaporation (Ep) is the amount of water an ecosystem would consume if it were not limited by water availability or other stress factors. In this study, we compared several methods to estimate Ep using a global dataset of 107 FLUXNET sites. A simple radiation-driven method calibrated per biome consistently outperformed more complex approaches and makes a suitable tool to investigate the impact of water use and demand, drought severity and biome productivity.
Adam Massmann, Pierre Gentine, and Changjie Lin
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2018-553, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2018-553, 2018
Revised manuscript not accepted
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Plants can sense increasing dryness in the air and close up the pores
on their leaves, preventing water loss. However, drier air also
naturally demands more water from the land surface. Here we develop a
simplified theory for when land surface water loss increases
(atmospheric demand dominates) or decreases (plant response dominates)
in response to increased dryness in the air. This theory provides
intuition for how ecosystems regulate water in response to changes in
atmospheric dryness.
Tim van Emmerik, Susan Steele-Dunne, Pierre Gentine, Rafael S. Oliveira, Paulo Bittencourt, Fernanda Barros, and Nick van de Giesen
Biogeosciences, 15, 6439–6449, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-6439-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-6439-2018, 2018
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Trees are very important for the water and carbon cycles. Climate and weather models often assume constant vegetation parameters because good measurements are missing. We used affordable accelerometers to measure tree sway of 19 trees in the Amazon rainforest. We show that trees respond very differently to the same weather conditions, which means that vegetation parameters are dynamic. With our measurements trees can be accounted for more realistically, improving climate and weather models.
Seyed Hamed Alemohammad, Jana Kolassa, Catherine Prigent, Filipe Aires, and Pierre Gentine
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 5341–5356, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5341-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-5341-2018, 2018
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A new machine learning algorithm is developed to downscale satellite-based soil moisture estimates from their native spatial scale of 9 km to 2.25 km.
Yao Zhang, Joanna Joiner, Seyed Hamed Alemohammad, Sha Zhou, and Pierre Gentine
Biogeosciences, 15, 5779–5800, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5779-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5779-2018, 2018
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Using satellite reflectance measurements and a machine learning algorithm, we generated a new solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) dataset that is closely linked to plant photosynthesis. This new dataset has higher spatial and temporal resolutions, and lower uncertainty compared to the existing satellite retrievals. We also demonstrated its application in monitoring drought and improving the understanding of the SIF–photosynthesis relationship.
Wouter H. Maes, Pierre Gentine, Niko E. C. Verhoest, and Diego G. Miralles
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2017-682, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2017-682, 2018
Revised manuscript not accepted
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Potential evaporation is a key parameter in numerous models used for assessing water use and drought severity. Yet, multiple incompatible methods have been proposed, thus estimates of potential evaporation remain uncertain. Based on the largest available dataset of FLUXNET data, we identify the best method to calculate potential evaporation globally. A simple radiation-driven method calibrated per biome consistently performed best; more complex models did not perform as good.
Ulrich Schumann and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 13833–13848, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13833-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13833-2017, 2017
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It is generally assumed that a positive radiative forcing of the atmosphere implies a warming of the Earth surface. This assumption is valid for well-mixed greenhouse gases but is not guaranteed for disturbances which cause a vertically variable radiative heating rate profile with warming in the upper troposphere and cooling near the surface. This conceptual study shows that the warming induced by contrail cirrus prevails only for fast vertical heat exchange by mixing within the troposphere.
Fabian Jakub and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 13317–13327, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13317-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13317-2017, 2017
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The formation of shallow cumulus cloud streets was historically attributed primarily to dynamics. Here, we focus on the interaction between radiatively induced surface heterogeneities and the resulting patterns in the flow. Our results suggest that solar radiative heating has the potential to organize clouds perpendicular to the sun's incidence angle.
Seyed Hamed Alemohammad, Bin Fang, Alexandra G. Konings, Filipe Aires, Julia K. Green, Jana Kolassa, Diego Miralles, Catherine Prigent, and Pierre Gentine
Biogeosciences, 14, 4101–4124, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4101-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4101-2017, 2017
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Water, Energy, and Carbon with Artificial Neural Networks (WECANN) is a statistically based estimate of global surface latent and sensible heat fluxes and gross primary productivity. The retrieval uses six remotely sensed observations as input, including the solar-induced fluorescence. WECANN provides estimates on a 1° × 1° geographic grid and on a monthly time scale and outperforms other global products in capturing the seasonality of the fluxes when compared to eddy covariance tower data.
Linda Forster, Meinhard Seefeldner, Matthias Wiegner, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 2499–2516, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2499-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-2499-2017, 2017
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Halo displays are produced by scattering of sunlight by smooth, hexagonal ice crystals. Consequently, the presence of a halo should contain information on particle shape. This study presents HaloCam, a novel sun-tracking camera system, and an automated detection algorithm to collect and evaluate long-term halo observations. Two-year HaloCam observations revealed that about 25 % of the detected cirrus clouds occurred together with a 22° halo indicating the presence of smooth, hexagonal crystals.
Tobias Sirch, Luca Bugliaro, Tobias Zinner, Matthias Möhrlein, and Margarita Vazquez-Navarro
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 409–429, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-409-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-409-2017, 2017
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A novel approach for the nowcasting of clouds and direct normal irradiance (DNI) based on the geostationary satellite MSG is presented. The basis of the algorithm is an optical flow method to derive cloud motion vectors for low and high level clouds separately. DNI is calculated from the forecasted optical thickness of the clouds. Validation against MSG observations shows good performance: compared to persistence an improvement of forecast horizon by a factor of 2 is reached for 2 h forecasts.
Nir Y. Krakauer, Michael J. Puma, Benjamin I. Cook, Pierre Gentine, and Larissa Nazarenko
Earth Syst. Dynam., 7, 863–876, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-863-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-863-2016, 2016
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We simulated effects of irrigation on climate with the NASA GISS global climate model. Present-day irrigation levels affected air pressures and temperatures even in non-irrigated land and ocean areas. The simulated effect was bigger and more widespread when ocean temperatures in the climate model could change, rather than being fixed. We suggest that expanding irrigation may affect global climate more than previously believed.
Tobias Zinner, Petra Hausmann, Florian Ewald, Luca Bugliaro, Claudia Emde, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 4615–4632, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-4615-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-4615-2016, 2016
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A new retrieval of optical thickness and effective particle size of ice clouds over a wide range of optical thickness from transmittance measurements is presented. A visible range spectral slope is used to resolve the transmittance optical thickness ambiguity. Retrieval sensitivity to ice crystal habit, aerosol, albedo, sensor accuracy and lookup table interpolation is presented as well as an application of the method and comparison to satellite products for 2 days.
Florian Ewald, Tobias Kölling, Andreas Baumgartner, Tobias Zinner, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 2015–2042, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-2015-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-2015-2016, 2016
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The new spectrometer of the Munich Aerosol Cloud Scanner (specMACS) is a
multipurpose hyperspectral cloud and sky imager which is designated, but not limited, to investigations of cloud-aerosol interactions in Earth's atmosphere. This paper describes the specMACS instrument's hardware and software design and
characterizes the instrument performance. Initial measurements of cloud sides are presented which demonstrate the wide applicability of the instrument.
Fabian Jakub and Bernhard Mayer
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 1413–1422, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1413-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1413-2016, 2016
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Radiative heating or cooling plays a vital role in the evolution and lifecycle of clouds. Due to the immense computational cost of 3-D radiative transfer, today's atmospheric models usually employ crude 1-D approximations which neglect any horizontal energy transport whatsoever and may introduce non-negligible errors. This paper documents the implementation and runtime characteristics of the new TenStream solver that enables us to study 3-D effects on large domains and extended periods of time.
N. Hanrieder, S. Wilbert, R. Pitz-Paal, C. Emde, J. Gasteiger, B. Mayer, and J. Polo
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 3467–3480, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-3467-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-3467-2015, 2015
F. Ewald, C. Winkler, and T. Zinner
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 8, 2491–2508, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2491-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-8-2491-2015, 2015
B. R. Lintner, P. Gentine, K. L. Findell, and G. D. Salvucci
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 2119–2131, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2119-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-2119-2015, 2015
M. Righi, V. Eyring, K.-D. Gottschaldt, C. Klinger, F. Frank, P. Jöckel, and I. Cionni
Geosci. Model Dev., 8, 733–768, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-733-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-733-2015, 2015
B. P. Guillod, B. Orlowsky, D. Miralles, A. J. Teuling, P. D. Blanken, N. Buchmann, P. Ciais, M. Ek, K. L. Findell, P. Gentine, B. R. Lintner, R. L. Scott, B. Van den Hurk, and S. I. Seneviratne
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 8343–8367, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-8343-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-8343-2014, 2014
A. Kreuter, R. Buras, B. Mayer, A. Webb, R. Kift, A. Bais, N. Kouremeti, and M. Blumthaler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 5989–6002, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-5989-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-5989-2014, 2014
B. Reinhardt, R. Buras, L. Bugliaro, S. Wilbert, and B. Mayer
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 823–838, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-823-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-823-2014, 2014
D. Merk and T. Zinner
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 1903–1918, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-1903-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-1903-2013, 2013
T. Zinner, C. Forster, E. de Coning, and H.-D. Betz
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 1567–1583, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-1567-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-1567-2013, 2013
A. Kylling, R. Buras, S. Eckhardt, C. Emde, B. Mayer, and A. Stohl
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 6, 649–660, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-649-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-6-649-2013, 2013
Related subject area
Subject: Radiation | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
The modulation of synoptic weather patterns and human activities on the diurnal cycle of the summertime canopy urban heat island in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China
Mechanisms of surface solar irradiance variability under broken clouds
Fine and coarse dust radiative impact during an intense Saharan dust outbreak over the Iberian Peninsula – short-wave direct radiative effect
Modeling actinic flux and photolysis frequencies in dense biomass burning plumes
Regional modeling of surface solar radiation, aerosol, and cloud cover spatial variability and projections over northern France and Benelux
A numerical sensitivity study on the snow-darkening effect by black carbon deposition over the Arctic in spring
Improved calculation of single-scattering properties of frozen droplets and frozen-droplet aggregates observed in deep convective clouds
Influence of cloudy and clear-sky partitions, aerosols, and geometry on the recent variability in surface solar irradiance components in northern France
Saharan dust impact on radiative heating rate errors inherent in reanalysis data in the African easterly wave development region
Sensitivity of ice cloud radiative heating to optical, macro- and microphysical properties
Combining observations and simulations to investigate the small-scale variability of surface solar irradiance under continental cumulus clouds
The impact of coupled 3D shortwave radiative transfer on surface radiation and cumulus clouds over land
Atmospheric cloud-radiative heating in CMIP6 and observations and its response to surface warming
Responses of polar energy budget to regional SST changes in extra-polar regions
Trends in observed surface solar radiation and their causes in Brazil in the first 2 decades of the 21st century
A sensitivity study on radiative effects due to the parameterization of dust optical properties in models
Uncertainties in cloud-radiative heating within an idealized extratropical cyclone
Evaluation of downward and upward solar irradiances simulated by the Integrated Forecasting System of ECMWF using airborne observations above Arctic low-level clouds
A colorful look at climate sensitivity
Sensitivity of cirrus and contrail radiative effect on cloud microphysical and environmental parameters
Evaluation of liquid cloud albedo susceptibility in E3SM using coupled eastern North Atlantic surface and satellite retrievals
Constraints on simulated past Arctic amplification and lapse rate feedback from observations
Comparison of methods to estimate aerosol effective radiative forcings in climate models
Montreal Protocol's impact on the ozone layer and climate
Opinion: The scientific and community-building roles of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) – past, present, and future
Impacts of reductions in non-methane short-lived climate forcers on future climate extremes and the resulting population exposure risks in eastern and southern Asia
Investigating the radiative effect of Arctic cirrus measured in situ during the winter 2015–2016
Dependence of strategic solar climate intervention on background scenario and model physics
Combining short-range dispersion simulations with fine-scale meteorological ensembles: probabilistic indicators and evaluation during a 85Kr field campaign
Climate consequences of hydrogen emissions
Investigating the impact of Saharan dust aerosols on analyses and forecasts of African easterly waves by constraining aerosol effects in radiance data assimilation
Distinct surface response to black carbon aerosols
Estimating the potential cooling effect of cirrus thinning achieved via the seeding approach
Impacts of multi-layer overlap on contrail radiative forcing
Bias in CMIP6 models as compared to observed regional dimming and brightening
A test of the ability of current bulk optical models to represent the radiative properties of cirrus cloud across the mid- and far-infrared
The incorporation of the Tripleclouds concept into the δ-Eddington two-stream radiation scheme: solver characterization and its application to shallow cumulus clouds
Radiative heating rate profiles over the southeast Atlantic Ocean during the 2016 and 2017 biomass burning seasons
Effective radiative forcing and adjustments in CMIP6 models
Response of surface shortwave cloud radiative effect to greenhouse gases and aerosols and its impact on summer maximum temperature
Combining atmospheric and snow radiative transfer models to assess the solar radiative effects of black carbon in the Arctic
Accurate 3-D radiative transfer simulation of spectral solar irradiance during the total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017
Quantifying the bias of radiative heating rates in numerical weather prediction models for shallow cumulus clouds
The climate effects of increasing ocean albedo: an idealized representation of solar geoengineering
Changes in clouds and thermodynamics under solar geoengineering and implications for required solar reduction
Radiative impact of an extreme Arctic biomass-burning event
Contrails and their impact on shortwave radiation and photovoltaic power production – a regional model study
The influence of internal variability on Earth's energy balance framework and implications for estimating climate sensitivity
Insights into the diurnal cycle of global Earth outgoing radiation using a numerical weather prediction model
Determining the infrared radiative effects of Saharan dust: a radiative transfer modelling study based on vertically resolved measurements at Lampedusa
Tao Shi, Yuanjian Yang, Lian Zong, Min Guo, Ping Qi, and Simone Lolli
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 4989–5007, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4989-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4989-2025, 2025
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Our study explored the daily temperature patterns in urban areas of the Yangtze River Delta, focusing on how weather and human activities impact these patterns. We found that temperatures were higher at night, and weather patterns had a bigger impact during the day, while human activities mattered more at night. This helps us understand and address urban overheating.
Wouter Mol and Chiel van Heerwaarden
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 4419–4441, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4419-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-4419-2025, 2025
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Sunlight varies often and quickly under broken cloud cover, and every cloud field creates a unique pattern of sunlight on the surface below. These variations affect many processes in the Earth system, from photosynthesis and chemistry to cloud formation itself. The exact way in which cloud particles interact with sunlight is complex and expensive to calculate. We demonstrate a simplified framework which explains how sunlight changes for potentially any cloud field.
María-Ángeles López-Cayuela, Carmen Córdoba-Jabonero, Michaël Sicard, Jesús Abril-Gago, Vanda Salgueiro, Adolfo Comerón, María José Granados-Muñoz, Maria João Costa, Constantino Muñoz-Porcar, Juan Antonio Bravo-Aranda, Daniele Bortoli, Alejandro Rodríguez-Gómez, Lucas Alados-Arboledas, and Juan Luis Guerrero-Rascado
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 3213–3231, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3213-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-3213-2025, 2025
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Due to the significant radiative role of dust in climate change, vertical assessments of the short-wave dust direct radiative effect of both fine and coarse dust particles are performed separately. The study is focused on an intense Saharan dust outbreak crossing the Iberian Peninsula in springtime monitored by five Iberian lidar stations with southwest–northeast coverage. A comparative study to evaluate the differences found by considering the total dust (no separation) is also examined.
Jan-Lukas Tirpitz, Santo Fedele Colosimo, Nathaniel Brockway, Robert Spurr, Matt Christi, Samuel Hall, Kirk Ullmann, Johnathan Hair, Taylor Shingler, Rodney Weber, Jack Dibb, Richard Moore, Elizabeth Wiggins, Vijay Natraj, Nicolas Theys, and Jochen Stutz
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1989–2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1989-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1989-2025, 2025
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We combine plume composition data from the 2019 NASA FIREX-AQ campaign with state-of-the-art radiative transfer modeling techniques to calculate distributions of actinic flux and photolysis frequencies in a wildfire plume. Excellent agreement of the model and observations demonstrates the applicability of this approach to constrain photochemistry in such plumes. We identify limiting factors for the modeling accuracy and discuss spatial and spectral features of the distributions.
Gabriel Chesnoiu, Isabelle Chiapello, Nicolas Ferlay, Pierre Nabat, Marc Mallet, and Véronique Riffault
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1307–1331, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1307-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1307-2025, 2025
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The ALADIN regional climate model at 12.5 km resolution allows us to study the evolution of surface solar radiation (SSR) and key associated atmospheric parameters. Over northern France and Benelux, influenced by anthropogenic aerosols and cloudy conditions, regional evaluation of recent hindcast simulations shows satisfying results and high spatial variability. Future SSR evolution by the end of the century for two contrasting CMIP6 scenarios highlights large decreases in SSR for SSP3-7.0.
Zilu Zhang, Libo Zhou, and Meigen Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 1–25, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1-2025, 2025
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By integrating the SNICAR model with Polar-WRF, we find that 50 ng g−1 black carbon (BC) deposition decreases snow albedo, increasing radiative forcing (RF) by 1–4 W m−2, especially in Greenland, Baffin Island, and eastern Siberia. The impact is strongly linked to BC mass, with deep snowpacks showing greater sensitivity. Snowmelt and land–atmosphere interactions are crucial. High-resolution modelling is necessary to better understand these effects on Arctic climate change.
Jeonggyu Kim, Sungmin Park, Greg M. McFarquhar, Anthony J. Baran, Joo Wan Cha, Kyoungmi Lee, Seoung Soo Lee, Chang Hoon Jung, Kyo-Sun Sunny Lim, and Junshik Um
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12707–12726, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12707-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12707-2024, 2024
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We developed idealized models to represent the shapes of ice particles found in deep convective clouds and calculated their single-scattering properties. By comparing these results with in situ measurements, we discovered that a mixture of shape models matches in situ measurements more closely than single-form models or aggregate models. This finding has important implications for enhancing the simulation of single-scattering properties of ice crystals in deep convective clouds.
Gabriel Chesnoiu, Nicolas Ferlay, Isabelle Chiapello, Frédérique Auriol, Diane Catalfamo, Mathieu Compiègne, Thierry Elias, and Isabelle Jankowiak
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12375–12407, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12375-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12375-2024, 2024
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The measured ground-based surface solar irradiance variability and its sensitivity to scene parameters are analysed with a filtering of sky conditions at a given site. Its multivariate analysis is applied to observed trends over 2010–2022. The recorded values show, in addition to the dominant effects of cloud occurrence, the variable effects of aerosol and geometry. Clear-sun-with-cloud situations are highlighted by SSI levels close to those of aerosol- and cloud-free situations.
Ruby W. Burgess and Mayra I. Oyola-Merced
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12183–12201, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12183-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12183-2024, 2024
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This study explores how aerosols affect atmospheric heating over African easterly waves (AEWs). Using data from NASA's aircraft and outputs of reanalysis models, the research focuses on days with both Saharan dust and AEWs. Using a radiative transfer model, the study reveals significant differences in heating rates, emphasizing challenges in accurately representing aerosol effects in the atmosphere and underscoring the need for improved aerosol representation in weather models.
Edgardo I. Sepulveda Araya, Sylvia C. Sullivan, and Aiko Voigt
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3212, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3212, 2024
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Clouds composed of ice crystals are key when evaluating atmospheric radiation. The morphology of the crystals found in clouds is not clear yet, and even less clear is the impact on cloud heating rate, which is essential to describe precipitation and wind patterns. This motivated us to study how the heating rate behaves under a variety of ice complexity and environmental conditions, finding that increasing complexity in high and dense clouds weakens the heating rate.
Zili He, Quentin Libois, Najda Villefranque, Hartwig Deneke, Jonas Witthuhn, and Fleur Couvreux
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11391–11408, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11391-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11391-2024, 2024
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This study uses observations and simulations to analyze how cumulus clouds affect spacial solar radiation variability on the ground. Results show that the simulations reproduce the observations well and improve understanding of cloud impacts on radiation. The research also indicates that a few strategically placed sensors, capitalizing on measurement timing, can effectively measure these variations, aiding in the development of detailed weather prediction models.
Mirjam Tijhuis, Bart J. H. van Stratum, and Chiel C. van Heerwaarden
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 10567–10582, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10567-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-10567-2024, 2024
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Radiative transfer in the atmosphere is a 3D processes, which is often modelled in 1D for computational efficiency. We studied the differences between using 1D and 3D radiative transfer. With 3D radiation, larger clouds that contain more liquid water develop. However, they cover roughly the same part of the sky, and the average total radiation at the surface is nearly unchanged. The increase in cloud size might be important for weather models, as it can impact the formation of rain, for example.
Aiko Voigt, Stefanie North, Blaž Gasparini, and Seung-Hee Ham
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9749–9775, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9749-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9749-2024, 2024
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Clouds shape weather and climate by interacting with photons, which changes temperatures within the atmosphere. We assess how well CMIP6 climate models capture this radiative heating by clouds within the atmosphere. While we find large differences among models, especially in cold regions of the atmosphere with abundant ice clouds, we also demonstrate that physical understanding allows us to predict the response of clouds and their radiative heating near the tropopause to climate change.
Qingmin Wang, Yincheng Liu, Lujun Zhang, and Chen Zhou
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2379, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2379, 2024
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Our research explores how SST changes in non-polar regions impact the polar energy budget. Through idealized SST experiments, we found that warming in tropical and midlatitude oceans raises polar temperatures via enhanced atmospheric energy transport, leading to surface warming and top-of-atmosphere cooling in polar areas. This study highlights the distinct impacts of tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean SST changes on Arctic and Antarctic climates.
Lucas Ferreira Correa, Doris Folini, Boriana Chtirkova, and Martin Wild
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8797–8819, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8797-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8797-2024, 2024
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We investigated the causes of the decadal trends of solar radiation measured at 34 stations in Brazil in the first 2 decades of the 21st century. We observed strong negative trends in north and northeast Brazil associated with changes in both atmospheric absorption (anthropogenic) and cloud cover (natural). In other parts of the country no strong trends were observed as a result of competing effects. This provides a better understanding of the energy balance in the region.
Ilias Fountoulakis, Alexandra Tsekeri, Stelios Kazadzis, Vassilis Amiridis, Angelos Nersesian, Maria Tsichla, Emmanouil Proestakis, Antonis Gkikas, Kyriakoula Papachristopoulou, Vasileios Barlakas, Claudia Emde, and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4915–4948, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4915-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4915-2024, 2024
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In our study we provide an assessment, through a sensitivity study, of the limitations of models to calculate the dust direct radiative effect (DRE) due to the underrepresentation of its size, refractive index (RI), and shape. Our results indicate the necessity of including more realistic sizes and RIs for dust particles in dust models, in order to derive better estimations of the dust direct radiative effects.
Behrooz Keshtgar, Aiko Voigt, Bernhard Mayer, and Corinna Hoose
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4751–4769, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4751-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4751-2024, 2024
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Cloud-radiative heating (CRH) affects extratropical cyclones but is uncertain in weather and climate models. We provide a framework to quantify uncertainties in CRH within an extratropical cyclone due to four factors and show that the parameterization of ice optical properties contributes significantly to uncertainty in CRH. We also argue that ice optical properties, by affecting CRH on spatial scales of 100 km, are relevant for the large-scale dynamics of extratropical cyclones.
Hanno Müller, André Ehrlich, Evelyn Jäkel, Johannes Röttenbacher, Benjamin Kirbus, Michael Schäfer, Robin J. Hogan, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 4157–4175, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4157-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4157-2024, 2024
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A weather model is used to compare solar radiation with measurements from an aircraft campaign in the Arctic. Model and observations agree on the downward radiation but show differences in the radiation reflected by the surface and the clouds, which in the model is too low above sea ice and too high above open ocean. The model–observation bias is reduced above open ocean by a realistic fraction of clouds and less cloud liquid water and above sea ice by less dark sea ice and more cloud droplets.
Bjorn Stevens and Lukas Kluft
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14673–14689, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14673-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14673-2023, 2023
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A simple model is introduced to account for the spectral diversity of radiant energy transfer. It provides an improved basis for assessing the different ways in which clouds influence Earth’s climate sensitivity, demonstrating how many cloud effects depend on the existing cloud climatology. Given existing assessments of changes in cloud albedo with warming, it is determined that clouds reduce Earth's climate sensitivity as compared to what it would be in a counterfactual world without clouds.
Kevin Wolf, Nicolas Bellouin, and Olivier Boucher
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14003–14037, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14003-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14003-2023, 2023
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Cirrus and contrails considerably impact Earth's energy budget. Such ice clouds can have a positive (warming) or negative (cooling) net radiative effect (RE), which depends on cloud and ambient properties. The effect of eight parameters on the cloud RE is estimated. In total, 283 500 radiative transfer simulations have been performed, spanning the typical parameter ranges associated with cirrus and contrails. Specific cases are selected and discussed. The data set is publicly available.
Adam C. Varble, Po-Lun Ma, Matthew W. Christensen, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Shuaiqi Tang, and Jerome Fast
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 13523–13553, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13523-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13523-2023, 2023
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We evaluate how clouds change in response to changing atmospheric particle (aerosol) concentrations in a climate model and find that the model-predicted cloud brightness increases too much as aerosols increase because the cloud drop number increases too much. Excessive drizzle in the model mutes this difference. Many differences between observational and model estimates are explained by varying assumptions of how much liquid has been lost in clouds, which impacts the estimated cloud drop number.
Olivia Linke, Johannes Quaas, Finja Baumer, Sebastian Becker, Jan Chylik, Sandro Dahlke, André Ehrlich, Dörthe Handorf, Christoph Jacobi, Heike Kalesse-Los, Luca Lelli, Sina Mehrdad, Roel A. J. Neggers, Johannes Riebold, Pablo Saavedra Garfias, Niklas Schnierstein, Matthew D. Shupe, Chris Smith, Gunnar Spreen, Baptiste Verneuil, Kameswara S. Vinjamuri, Marco Vountas, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 9963–9992, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9963-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9963-2023, 2023
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Lapse rate feedback (LRF) is a major driver of the Arctic amplification (AA) of climate change. It arises because the warming is stronger at the surface than aloft. Several processes can affect the LRF in the Arctic, such as the omnipresent temperature inversion. Here, we compare multimodel climate simulations to Arctic-based observations from a large research consortium to broaden our understanding of these processes, find synergy among them, and constrain the Arctic LRF and AA.
Mark D. Zelinka, Christopher J. Smith, Yi Qin, and Karl E. Taylor
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8879–8898, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8879-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8879-2023, 2023
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The primary uncertainty in how strongly Earth's climate has been perturbed by human activities comes from the unknown radiative impact of aerosol changes. Accurately quantifying these forcings – and their sub-components – in climate models is crucial for understanding the past and future simulated climate. In this study we describe biases in previously published estimates of aerosol radiative forcing in climate models and provide corrected estimates along with code for users to compute them.
Tatiana Egorova, Jan Sedlacek, Timofei Sukhodolov, Arseniy Karagodin-Doyennel, Franziska Zilker, and Eugene Rozanov
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5135–5147, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5135-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5135-2023, 2023
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This paper describes the climate and atmosphere benefits of the Montreal Protocol, simulated with the state-of-the-art Earth system model SOCOLv4.0. We have added to and confirmed the previous studies by showing that without the Montreal Protocol by the end of the 21st century there would be a dramatic reduction in the ozone layer as well as substantial perturbation of the essential climate variables in the troposphere caused by the warming from increasing ozone-depleting substances.
Daniele Visioni, Ben Kravitz, Alan Robock, Simone Tilmes, Jim Haywood, Olivier Boucher, Mark Lawrence, Peter Irvine, Ulrike Niemeier, Lili Xia, Gabriel Chiodo, Chris Lennard, Shingo Watanabe, John C. Moore, and Helene Muri
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5149–5176, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5149-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5149-2023, 2023
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Geoengineering indicates methods aiming to reduce the temperature of the planet by means of reflecting back a part of the incoming radiation before it reaches the surface or allowing more of the planetary radiation to escape into space. It aims to produce modelling experiments that are easy to reproduce and compare with different climate models, in order to understand the potential impacts of these techniques. Here we assess its past successes and failures and talk about its future.
Yingfang Li, Zhili Wang, Yadong Lei, Huizheng Che, and Xiaoye Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2499–2523, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2499-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2499-2023, 2023
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Since few studies have assessed the impacts of future combined reductions in aerosols, ozone, and their precursors on future climate change, we use models with an interactive representation of tropospheric aerosols and atmospheric chemistry schemes to quantify the impact of their reductions on the Asian climate. Our results suggest that their reductions will exacerbate the warming effect caused by greenhouse gases, increasing future climate extremes and associated population exposure risk.
Andreas Marsing, Ralf Meerkötter, Romy Heller, Stefan Kaufmann, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Martina Krämer, Christian Rolf, and Christiane Voigt
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 587–609, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-587-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-587-2023, 2023
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We employ highly resolved aircraft measurements of profiles of the ice water content (IWC) in Arctic cirrus clouds in winter and spring, when solar irradiation is low. Using radiation transfer calculations, we assess the cloud radiative effect over different surfaces like snow or ocean. The variability in the IWC of the clouds affects their overall radiative effect and drives internal processes. This helps understand the role of cirrus in a rapidly changing Arctic environment.
John T. Fasullo and Jadwiga H. Richter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 163–182, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-163-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-163-2023, 2023
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The continued high levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increase the likelihood that key climate warming thresholds will be exceeded in the coming decades. Here we examine a recently proposed geoengineering approach using two recently produced climate model experiments. We find the associated latitudinal distribution of aerosol mass to exhibit substantial uncertainty, suggesting the need for significant flexibility in the location and amount of aerosol delivery, if implemented.
Youness El-Ouartassy, Irène Korsakissok, Matthieu Plu, Olivier Connan, Laurent Descamps, and Laure Raynaud
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 15793–15816, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15793-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-15793-2022, 2022
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This work investigates the potential value of using fine-scale meteorological ensembles to represent the inherent meteorological uncertainties in atmospheric dispersion model outputs. Probabilistic scores were used to evaluate the probabilistic performance of dispersion ensembles, using an original dataset of new continuous 85Kr air concentration measurements and a well-known source term. The results show that the ensemble dispersion simulations perform better than deterministic ones.
Ilissa B. Ocko and Steven P. Hamburg
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9349–9368, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9349-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9349-2022, 2022
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Hydrogen is considered a key strategy to decarbonize the global economy. However, hydrogen is also a short-lived indirect greenhouse gas that can easily leak into the atmosphere. Given that the climate impacts from hydrogen emissions are not well understood, especially in the near term, we assess impacts over all timescales for plausible emissions rates. We find that hydrogen leakage can cause more warming than widely perceived; thus, attention is needed to minimize emissions.
Dustin Francis Phillip Grogan, Cheng-Hsuan Lu, Shih-Wei Wei, and Sheng-Po Chen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 2385–2398, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2385-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2385-2022, 2022
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This study shows that incorporating aerosols into satellite radiance calculations affects the representation of African easterly waves (AEWs), and their environment, over North Africa and the eastern Atlantic in a numerical weather model. These changes are driven by radiative effects of Saharan dust captured by the aerosol-affected radiances, which modify the initial fields and can improve the forecasting of AEWs.
Tao Tang, Drew Shindell, Yuqiang Zhang, Apostolos Voulgarakis, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Gunnar Myhre, Gregory Faluvegi, Bjørn H. Samset, Timothy Andrews, Dirk Olivié, Toshihiko Takemura, and Xuhui Lee
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 13797–13809, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13797-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13797-2021, 2021
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Previous studies showed that black carbon (BC) could warm the surface with decreased incoming radiation. With climate models, we found that the surface energy redistribution plays a more crucial role in surface temperature compared with other forcing agents. Though BC could reduce the surface heating, the energy dissipates less efficiently, which is manifested by reduced convective and evaporative cooling, thereby warming the surface.
Jiaojiao Liu and Xiangjun Shi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10609–10624, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10609-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10609-2021, 2021
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Cirrus thinning, which reduces the warming effect of cirrus clouds, has been investigated as a new geoengineering approach. In this study, a flexible seeding method is used to exploit the potential cooling effect of cirrus thinning. Simulation results show that the seeding method is essential for estimating the cooling effect. Cirrus thinning with the flexible seeding method could produce a considerable cooling effect, which is much stronger than the fixed seeding method.
Inés Sanz-Morère, Sebastian D. Eastham, Florian Allroggen, Raymond L. Speth, and Steven R. H. Barrett
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1649–1681, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1649-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1649-2021, 2021
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Contrails cause ~50 % of aviation climate impacts, but this is highly uncertain. This is partly due to the effect of overlap between contrails and other cloud layers. We developed a model to quantify this effect, finding that overlap with natural clouds increased contrails' radiative forcing in 2015. This suggests that cloud avoidance may help in reducing aviation's climate impacts. We also find that contrail–contrail overlap reduces impacts by ~3 %, increasing non-linearly with optical depth.
Kine Onsum Moseid, Michael Schulz, Trude Storelvmo, Ingeborg Rian Julsrud, Dirk Olivié, Pierre Nabat, Martin Wild, Jason N. S. Cole, Toshihiko Takemura, Naga Oshima, Susanne E. Bauer, and Guillaume Gastineau
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 16023–16040, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-16023-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-16023-2020, 2020
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In this study we compare solar radiation at the surface from observations and Earth system models from 1961 to 2014. We find that the models do not reproduce the so-called
global dimmingas found in observations. Only model experiments with anthropogenic aerosol emissions display any dimming at all. The discrepancies between observations and models are largest in China, which we suggest is in part due to erroneous aerosol precursor emission inventories in the emission dataset used for CMIP6.
Richard J. Bantges, Helen E. Brindley, Jonathan E. Murray, Alan E. Last, Jacqueline E. Russell, Cathryn Fox, Stuart Fox, Chawn Harlow, Sebastian J. O'Shea, Keith N. Bower, Bryan A. Baum, Ping Yang, Hilke Oetjen, and Juliet C. Pickering
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12889–12903, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12889-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12889-2020, 2020
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Understanding how ice clouds influence the Earth's energy balance remains a key challenge for predicting the future climate. These clouds are ubiquitous and are composed of ice crystals that have complex shapes that are incredibly difficult to model. This work exploits new measurements of the Earth's emitted thermal energy made from instruments flown on board an aircraft to test how well the latest ice cloud models can represent these clouds. Results indicate further developments are required.
Nina Črnivec and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10733–10755, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10733-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10733-2020, 2020
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Unresolved interaction between clouds and atmospheric radiation is a source of uncertainty in weather and climate models. The present study highlights the potential of the state-of-the-art Tripleclouds radiative solver for shallow cumulus clouds, exposing the significance of properly representing subgrid cloud horizontal heterogeneity. The Tripleclouds concept was thereby incorporated in the widely employed δ-Eddington two-stream radiation scheme within the comprehensive libRadtran library.
Allison B. Marquardt Collow, Mark A. Miller, Lynne C. Trabachino, Michael P. Jensen, and Meng Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10073–10090, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10073-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10073-2020, 2020
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Uncertainties in marine boundary layer clouds arise in the presence of biomass burning aerosol, as is the case over the southeast Atlantic Ocean. Heating due to this aerosol has the potential to alter the thermodynamic profile as the aerosol is transported across the Atlantic Ocean. Radiation transfer experiments indicate local shortwave aerosol heating is ~2–8 K d−1; however uncertainties in this quantity exist due to the single-scattering albedo and back trajectories of the aerosol plume.
Christopher J. Smith, Ryan J. Kramer, Gunnar Myhre, Kari Alterskjær, William Collins, Adriana Sima, Olivier Boucher, Jean-Louis Dufresne, Pierre Nabat, Martine Michou, Seiji Yukimoto, Jason Cole, David Paynter, Hideo Shiogama, Fiona M. O'Connor, Eddy Robertson, Andy Wiltshire, Timothy Andrews, Cécile Hannay, Ron Miller, Larissa Nazarenko, Alf Kirkevåg, Dirk Olivié, Stephanie Fiedler, Anna Lewinschal, Chloe Mackallah, Martin Dix, Robert Pincus, and Piers M. Forster
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9591–9618, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9591-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9591-2020, 2020
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The spread in effective radiative forcing for both CO2 and aerosols is narrower in the latest CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) generation than in CMIP5. For the case of CO2 it is likely that model radiation parameterisations have improved. Tropospheric and stratospheric radiative adjustments to the forcing behave differently for different forcing agents, and there is still significant diversity in how clouds respond to forcings, particularly for total anthropogenic forcing.
Tao Tang, Drew Shindell, Yuqiang Zhang, Apostolos Voulgarakis, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Gunnar Myhre, Camilla W. Stjern, Gregory Faluvegi, and Bjørn H. Samset
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 8251–8266, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8251-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8251-2020, 2020
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By using climate simulations, we found that both CO2 and black carbon aerosols could reduce low-level cloud cover, which is mainly due to changes in relative humidity, cloud water, dynamics, and stability. Because the impact of cloud on solar radiation is in effect only during daytime, such cloud reduction could enhance solar heating, thereby raising the daily maximum temperature by 10–50 %, varying by region, which has great implications for extreme climate events and socioeconomic activity.
Tobias Donth, Evelyn Jäkel, André Ehrlich, Bernd Heinold, Jacob Schacht, Andreas Herber, Marco Zanatta, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 8139–8156, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8139-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8139-2020, 2020
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Solar radiative effects of Arctic black carbon (BC) particles (suspended in the atmosphere and in the surface snowpack) were quantified under cloudless and cloudy conditions. An atmospheric and a snow radiative transfer model were coupled to account for radiative interactions between both compartments. It was found that (i) the warming effect of BC in the snowpack overcompensates for the atmospheric BC cooling effect, and (ii) clouds tend to reduce the atmospheric BC cooling and snow BC warming.
Paul Ockenfuß, Claudia Emde, Bernhard Mayer, and Germar Bernhard
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 1961–1976, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1961-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1961-2020, 2020
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We model solar radiation as it would be measured on the Earth's surface in the core shadow of a total solar eclipse. Subsequently, we compare our results to observations during the total eclipse 2017 for ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Moreover, we analyze the effect of the surface reflectance, the ozone profile, aerosol and the topography and give a visualization of the prevailing photons paths in the atmosphere during the eclipse.
Nina Črnivec and Bernhard Mayer
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 8083–8100, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8083-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8083-2019, 2019
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The interaction between radiation and clouds represents a source of uncertainty in numerical weather prediction (NWP), due to both intrinsic problems of one-dimensional radiation schemes and poor representation of clouds. The underlying question addressed in this study is how large the bias is of radiative heating rates in NWP models for shallow cumulus clouds and how it scales with various parameters, such as solar zenith angle, surface albedo, cloud cover and liquid water path.
Ben Kravitz, Philip J. Rasch, Hailong Wang, Alan Robock, Corey Gabriel, Olivier Boucher, Jason N. S. Cole, Jim Haywood, Duoying Ji, Andy Jones, Andrew Lenton, John C. Moore, Helene Muri, Ulrike Niemeier, Steven Phipps, Hauke Schmidt, Shingo Watanabe, Shuting Yang, and Jin-Ho Yoon
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 13097–13113, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-13097-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-13097-2018, 2018
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Marine cloud brightening has been proposed as a means of geoengineering/climate intervention, or deliberately altering the climate system to offset anthropogenic climate change. In idealized simulations that highlight contrasts between land and ocean, we find that the globe warms, including the ocean due to transport of heat from land. This study reinforces that no net energy input into the Earth system does not mean that temperature will necessarily remain unchanged.
Rick D. Russotto and Thomas P. Ackerman
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 11905–11925, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11905-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11905-2018, 2018
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In simulations with different climate models in which the strength of the Sun is reduced to cancel the surface warming from a quadrupling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, low cloud cover decreases, high cloud cover increases, the upper troposphere and stratosphere cool, and water vapor concentration decreases. The stratospheric cooling and low cloud reduction result in more sunlight reduction being needed than originally thought.
Justyna Lisok, Anna Rozwadowska, Jesper G. Pedersen, Krzysztof M. Markowicz, Christoph Ritter, Jacek W. Kaminski, Joanna Struzewska, Mauro Mazzola, Roberto Udisti, Silvia Becagli, and Izabela Gorecka
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 8829–8848, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-8829-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-8829-2018, 2018
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The aim of the presented study was to investigate the impact on the radiation budget and atmospheric dynamics of a biomass-burning plume, transported from Alaska to the High Arctic region of Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, in early July 2015. We found that the smoke plume may significantly alter radiative properties of the atmosphere. Furthermore, the simulations of atmospheric dynamics indicated a vertical positive displacement and broadening of the plume with time.
Simon Gruber, Simon Unterstrasser, Jan Bechtold, Heike Vogel, Martin Jung, Henry Pak, and Bernhard Vogel
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 6393–6411, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-6393-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-6393-2018, 2018
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A numerical model also used for operational weather forecast was applied to investigate the impact of contrails and contrail cirrus on the radiative fluxes at the earth's surface. Accounting for contrails produced by aircraft enables the model to simulate high clouds that are otherwise missing. In a case study, we find that the effect of these extra clouds is to reduce the incoming shortwave radiation at the surface as well as the production of photovoltaic power by up to 10 %.
Andrew E. Dessler, Thorsten Mauritsen, and Bjorn Stevens
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 5147–5155, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5147-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5147-2018, 2018
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One of the most important parameters in climate science is the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). Estimates of this quantity based on 20th-century observations suggest low values of ECS (below 2 °C). We show that these calculations may be significantly in error. Together with other recent work on this problem, it seems probable that the ECS is larger than suggested by the 20th-century observations.
Jake J. Gristey, J. Christine Chiu, Robert J. Gurney, Cyril J. Morcrette, Peter G. Hill, Jacqueline E. Russell, and Helen E. Brindley
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 5129–5145, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5129-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5129-2018, 2018
Daniela Meloni, Alcide di Sarra, Gérard Brogniez, Cyrielle Denjean, Lorenzo De Silvestri, Tatiana Di Iorio, Paola Formenti, José L. Gómez-Amo, Julian Gröbner, Natalia Kouremeti, Giuliano Liuzzi, Marc Mallet, Giandomenico Pace, and Damiano M. Sferlazzo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 4377–4401, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4377-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4377-2018, 2018
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This study examines how different aerosol optical properties determine the dust longwave radiative effects at the surface, in the atmosphere and at the top of the atmosphere, based on the combination of remote sensing and in situ observations from the ground, from airborne sensors, and from space, by means of radiative transfer modelling. The closure experiment is based on longwave irradiances and spectral brightness temperatures measured during the 2013 ChArMEx–ADRIMED campaign at Lampedusa.
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Short summary
Radiation is driving weather and climate. Yet, the effect of radiation on clouds is not fully understood and often only poorly represented in models. Better understanding and better parameterizations of the radiation–cloud interaction are therefore essential. Using our newly developed fast
neighboring column approximationfor 3-D thermal heating and cooling rates, we show that thermal radiation changes cloud circulation and causes organization and a deepening of the clouds.
Radiation is driving weather and climate. Yet, the effect of radiation on clouds is not fully...
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