Articles | Volume 18, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5147-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5147-2018
© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
17 Apr 2018
Research article |
| 17 Apr 2018
| 17 Apr 2018
The influence of internal variability on Earth's energy balance framework and implications for estimating climate sensitivity
Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Thorsten Mauritsen
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstraße 53, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Bjorn Stevens
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstraße 53, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
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Sushant Das, Frida Bender, and Thorsten Mauritsen
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Cathy Hohenegger, Peter Korn, Leonidas Linardakis, René Redler, Reiner Schnur, Panagiotis Adamidis, Jiawei Bao, Swantje Bastin, Milad Behravesh, Martin Bergemann, Joachim Biercamp, Hendryk Bockelmann, Renate Brokopf, Nils Brüggemann, Lucas Casaroli, Fatemeh Chegini, George Datseris, Monika Esch, Geet George, Marco Giorgetta, Oliver Gutjahr, Helmuth Haak, Moritz Hanke, Tatiana Ilyina, Thomas Jahns, Johann Jungclaus, Marcel Kern, Daniel Klocke, Lukas Kluft, Tobias Kölling, Luis Kornblueh, Sergey Kosukhin, Clarissa Kroll, Junhong Lee, Thorsten Mauritsen, Carolin Mehlmann, Theresa Mieslinger, Ann Kristin Naumann, Laura Paccini, Angel Peinado, Divya Sri Praturi, Dian Putrasahan, Sebastian Rast, Thomas Riddick, Niklas Roeber, Hauke Schmidt, Uwe Schulzweida, Florian Schütte, Hans Segura, Radomyra Shevchenko, Vikram Singh, Mia Specht, Claudia Christine Stephan, Jin-Song von Storch, Raphaela Vogel, Christian Wengel, Marius Winkler, Florian Ziemen, Jochem Marotzke, and Bjorn Stevens
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Marco A. Giorgetta, William Sawyer, Xavier Lapillonne, Panagiotis Adamidis, Dmitry Alexeev, Valentin Clément, Remo Dietlicher, Jan Frederik Engels, Monika Esch, Henning Franke, Claudia Frauen, Walter M. Hannah, Benjamin R. Hillman, Luis Kornblueh, Philippe Marti, Matthew R. Norman, Robert Pincus, Sebastian Rast, Daniel Reinert, Reiner Schnur, Uwe Schulzweida, and Bjorn Stevens
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This work presents a first version of the ICON atmosphere model that works not only on CPUs, but also on GPUs. This GPU-enabled ICON version is benchmarked on two GPU machines and a CPU machine. While the weak scaling is very good on CPUs and GPUs, the strong scaling is poor on GPUs. But the high performance of GPU machines allowed for first simulations of a short period of the quasi-biennial oscillation at very high resolution with explicit convection and gravity wave forcing.
James D. Annan, Julia C. Hargreaves, and Thorsten Mauritsen
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The trades are home to a plethora of small cumulus clouds that are often barely visible to the human eye and difficult to detect with active and passive remote sensing methods. With the help of a new method and by means of high-resolution data we can detect small and particularly thin clouds. We find that optically thin clouds are a common phenomenon in the trades, covering a large area and influencing the radiative effect of clouds if they are undetected and contaminate the cloud-free signal.
Sandrine Bony, Marie Lothon, Julien Delanoë, Pierre Coutris, Jean-Claude Etienne, Franziska Aemisegger, Anna Lea Albright, Thierry André, Hubert Bellec, Alexandre Baron, Jean-François Bourdinot, Pierre-Etienne Brilouet, Aurélien Bourdon, Jean-Christophe Canonici, Christophe Caudoux, Patrick Chazette, Michel Cluzeau, Céline Cornet, Jean-Philippe Desbios, Dominique Duchanoy, Cyrille Flamant, Benjamin Fildier, Christophe Gourbeyre, Laurent Guiraud, Tetyana Jiang, Claude Lainard, Christophe Le Gac, Christian Lendroit, Julien Lernould, Thierry Perrin, Frédéric Pouvesle, Pascal Richard, Nicolas Rochetin, Kevin Salaün, Alfons Schwarzenboeck, Guillaume Seurat, Bjorn Stevens, Julien Totems, Ludovic Touzé-Peiffer, Gilles Vergez, Jessica Vial, Leonie Villiger, and Raphaela Vogel
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 2021–2064, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2021-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2021-2022, 2022
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The French ATR42 research aircraft participated in the EUREC4A international field campaign that took place in 2020 over the tropical Atlantic, east of Barbados. We present the extensive instrumentation of the aircraft, the research flights and the different measurements. We show that the ATR measurements of humidity, wind, aerosols and cloudiness in the lower atmosphere are robust and consistent with each other. They will make it possible to advance understanding of cloud–climate interactions.
Michael Schäfer, Kevin Wolf, André Ehrlich, Christoph Hallbauer, Evelyn Jäkel, Friedhelm Jansen, Anna Elizabeth Luebke, Joshua Müller, Jakob Thoböll, Timo Röschenthaler, Bjorn Stevens, and Manfred Wendisch
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 1491–1509, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-1491-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-1491-2022, 2022
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The new airborne thermal infrared imager VELOX is introduced. It measures two-dimensional fields of spectral thermal infrared radiance or brightness temperature within the large atmospheric window. The technical specifications as well as necessary calibration and correction procedures are presented. Example measurements from the first field deployment are analysed with respect to cloud coverage and cloud top altitude.
Heike Konow, Florian Ewald, Geet George, Marek Jacob, Marcus Klingebiel, Tobias Kölling, Anna E. Luebke, Theresa Mieslinger, Veronika Pörtge, Jule Radtke, Michael Schäfer, Hauke Schulz, Raphaela Vogel, Martin Wirth, Sandrine Bony, Susanne Crewell, André Ehrlich, Linda Forster, Andreas Giez, Felix Gödde, Silke Groß, Manuel Gutleben, Martin Hagen, Lutz Hirsch, Friedhelm Jansen, Theresa Lang, Bernhard Mayer, Mario Mech, Marc Prange, Sabrina Schnitt, Jessica Vial, Andreas Walbröl, Manfred Wendisch, Kevin Wolf, Tobias Zinner, Martin Zöger, Felix Ament, and Bjorn Stevens
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 5545–5563, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5545-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5545-2021, 2021
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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.
Geet George, Bjorn Stevens, Sandrine Bony, Robert Pincus, Chris Fairall, Hauke Schulz, Tobias Kölling, Quinn T. Kalen, Marcus Klingebiel, Heike Konow, Ashley Lundry, Marc Prange, and Jule Radtke
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 5253–5272, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5253-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5253-2021, 2021
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Dropsondes measure atmospheric parameters such as temperature, pressure, humidity and horizontal winds. The EUREC4A field campaign deployed 1215 dropsondes during January–February 2020 in the north Atlantic trade-wind region in order to characterize the thermodynamic and the dynamic structure of the atmosphere, primarily at horizontal scales of ~ 200 km. We present JOANNE, the dataset that provides these dropsonde measurements and thereby a rich characterization of the trade-wind atmosphere.
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.
Jangho Lee, Jeffrey C. Mast, and Andrew E. Dessler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 11889–11904, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11889-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-11889-2021, 2021
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This paper investigates the impact of global warming on heat and humidity extremes. There are three major findings in this study. We quantify how unforced variability in the climate impacts can lead to large variations where heat waves occur, we find that all heat extremes increase as the climate warms, especially between 1.5 and 2.0 °C of the average global warming, and we show that the economic inequity of facing extreme heat will worsen in a warmer world.
Hyunju Jung, Ann Kristin Naumann, and Bjorn Stevens
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10337–10345, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10337-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10337-2021, 2021
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We analyze the behavior of organized convection in a large-scale flow by imposing a mean flow to idealized simulations. In the mean flow, organized convection initially propagates slower than the mean wind speed and becomes stationary. The initial upstream and downstream difference in surface fluxes becomes symmetric as the surface momentum flux acts as a drag, resulting in the stationarity. Meanwhile, the surface enthalpy flux has a minor role in the propagation of the convection.
Franziska Aemisegger, Raphaela Vogel, Pascal Graf, Fabienne Dahinden, Leonie Villiger, Friedhelm Jansen, Sandrine Bony, Bjorn Stevens, and Heini Wernli
Weather Clim. Dynam., 2, 281–309, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-281-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-281-2021, 2021
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The interaction of clouds in the trade wind region with the atmospheric flow is complex and at the heart of uncertainties associated with climate projections. In this study, a natural tracer of atmospheric circulation is used to establish a link between air originating from dry regions of the midlatitudes and the occurrence of specific cloud patterns. Two pathways involving transport within midlatitude weather systems are identified, by which air is brought into the trades within 5–10 d.
Jule Radtke, Thorsten Mauritsen, and Cathy Hohenegger
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 3275–3288, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-3275-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-3275-2021, 2021
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Shallow trade wind clouds are a key source of uncertainty to projections of the Earth's changing climate. We perform high-resolution simulations of trade cumulus and investigate how the representation and climate feedback of these clouds depend on the specific grid spacing. We find that the cloud feedback is positive when simulated with kilometre but near zero when simulated with hectometre grid spacing. These findings suggest that storm-resolving models may exaggerate the trade cloud feedback.
Claudia Christine Stephan, Sabrina Schnitt, Hauke Schulz, Hugo Bellenger, Simon P. de Szoeke, Claudia Acquistapace, Katharina Baier, Thibaut Dauhut, Rémi Laxenaire, Yanmichel Morfa-Avalos, Renaud Person, Estefanía Quiñones Meléndez, Gholamhossein Bagheri, Tobias Böck, Alton Daley, Johannes Güttler, Kevin C. Helfer, Sebastian A. Los, Almuth Neuberger, Johannes Röttenbacher, Andreas Raeke, Maximilian Ringel, Markus Ritschel, Pauline Sadoulet, Imke Schirmacher, M. Katharina Stolla, Ethan Wright, Benjamin Charpentier, Alexis Doerenbecher, Richard Wilson, Friedhelm Jansen, Stefan Kinne, Gilles Reverdin, Sabrina Speich, Sandrine Bony, and Bjorn Stevens
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 491–514, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-491-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-491-2021, 2021
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The EUREC4A field campaign took place in the western tropical Atlantic during January and February 2020. A total of 811 radiosondes, launched regularly (usually 4-hourly) from Barbados, and 4 ships measured wind, temperature, and relative humidity. They sampled atmospheric variability associated with different ocean surface conditions, synoptic variability, and mesoscale convective organization. The methods of data collection and post-processing for the radiosonde data are described here.
Xun Wang and Andrew E. Dessler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 13267–13282, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13267-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13267-2020, 2020
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We investigate the response of stratospheric water vapor (SWV) to different forcing agents, including greenhouse gases and aerosols. For most forcing agents, the SWV response is dominated by a slow response, which is coupled to surface temperature changes and exhibits a similar sensitivity to the surface temperature across all forcing agents. The fast SWV adjustment due to forcing is important when the forcing agent directly heats the cold-point region, e.g., black carbon.
Wandi Yu, Andrew E. Dessler, Mijeong Park, and Eric J. Jensen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12153–12161, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12153-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12153-2020, 2020
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The stratospheric water vapor mixing ratio over North America (NA) region is up to ~ 1 ppmv higher when deep convection occurs. We find substantial consistency in the interannual variations of NA water vapor anomaly and deep convection and explain both the summer seasonal cycle and interannual variability of the convective moistening efficiency. We show that the NA anticyclone and tropical upper tropospheric temperature determine how much deep convection moistens the lower stratosphere.
Martin Renoult, James Douglas Annan, Julia Catherine Hargreaves, Navjit Sagoo, Clare Flynn, Marie-Luise Kapsch, Qiang Li, Gerrit Lohmann, Uwe Mikolajewicz, Rumi Ohgaito, Xiaoxu Shi, Qiong Zhang, and Thorsten Mauritsen
Clim. Past, 16, 1715–1735, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-1715-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-1715-2020, 2020
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Interest in past climates as sources of information for the climate system has grown in recent years. In particular, studies of the warm mid-Pliocene and cold Last Glacial Maximum showed relationships between the tropical surface temperature of the Earth and its sensitivity to an abrupt doubling of atmospheric CO2. In this study, we develop a new and promising statistical method and obtain similar results as previously observed, wherein the sensitivity does not seem to exceed extreme values.
James D. Annan, Julia C. Hargreaves, Thorsten Mauritsen, and Bjorn Stevens
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 709–719, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-709-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-709-2020, 2020
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In this paper we explore the potential of variability for constraining the equilibrium response of the climate system to external forcing. We show that the constraint is inherently skewed, with a long tail to high sensitivity, and that while the variability may contain some useful information, it is unlikely to generate a tight constraint.
Clare Marie Flynn and Thorsten Mauritsen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 7829–7842, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7829-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7829-2020, 2020
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The range of climate sensitivity of models participating in CMIP6 has increased relative to models participating in CMIP5 due to decreases in the total feedback parameter. This is caused by increases in the shortwave all-sky and clear-sky feedbacks, particularly over the Southern Ocean. These shifts between CMIP6 and CMIP5 did not arise by chance. Both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are found to exhibit aerosol forcing that is too strong, causing too much cooling relative to observations.
Xun Wang, Andrew E. Dessler, Mark R. Schoeberl, Wandi Yu, and Tao Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 14621–14636, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-14621-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-14621-2019, 2019
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We use a trajectory model to diagnose mechanisms that produce the observed and modeled tropical lower stratospheric water vapor seasonal cycle. We confirm that the seasonal cycle of water vapor is primarily determined by the seasonal cycle of tropical tropopause layer (TTL) temperatures. However, between 10° N and 40° N, we find that evaporation of convective ice in the TTL plays a key role contributing to the water vapor seasonal cycle there. The Asian monsoon region is the most important region.
Heike Konow, Marek Jacob, Felix Ament, Susanne Crewell, Florian Ewald, Martin Hagen, Lutz Hirsch, Friedhelm Jansen, Mario Mech, and Bjorn Stevens
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 11, 921–934, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-11-921-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-11-921-2019, 2019
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High-resolution measurements of maritime clouds are relatively scarce. Airborne cloud radar, microwave radiometer and dropsonde observations are used to expand these data. The measurements are unified into one data set to enable easy joint analyses of several or all instruments together to gain insight into cloud properties and atmospheric state. The data set contains measurements from four campaigns between December 2013 and October 2016 over the tropical and midlatitude Atlantic.
Stephanie Fiedler, Bjorn Stevens, Matthew Gidden, Steven J. Smith, Keywan Riahi, and Detlef van Vuuren
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 989–1007, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-989-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-989-2019, 2019
Daniel T. McCoy, Paul R. Field, Gregory S. Elsaesser, Alejandro Bodas-Salcedo, Brian H. Kahn, Mark D. Zelinka, Chihiro Kodama, Thorsten Mauritsen, Benoit Vanniere, Malcolm Roberts, Pier L. Vidale, David Saint-Martin, Aurore Voldoire, Rein Haarsma, Adrian Hill, Ben Shipway, and Jonathan Wilkinson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 1147–1172, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1147-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1147-2019, 2019
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The largest single source of uncertainty in the climate sensitivity predicted by global climate models is how much low-altitude clouds change as the climate warms. Models predict that the amount of liquid within and the brightness of low-altitude clouds increase in the extratropics with warming. We show that increased fluxes of moisture into extratropical storms in the midlatitudes explain the majority of the observed trend and the modeled increase in liquid water within these storms.
Uwe Mikolajewicz, Florian Ziemen, Guido Cioni, Martin Claussen, Klaus Fraedrich, Marvin Heidkamp, Cathy Hohenegger, Diego Jimenez de la Cuesta, Marie-Luise Kapsch, Alexander Lemburg, Thorsten Mauritsen, Katharina Meraner, Niklas Röber, Hauke Schmidt, Katharina D. Six, Irene Stemmler, Talia Tamarin-Brodsky, Alexander Winkler, Xiuhua Zhu, and Bjorn Stevens
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 1191–1215, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1191-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1191-2018, 2018
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Model experiments show that changing the sense of Earth's rotation has relatively little impact on the globally and zonally averaged energy budgets but leads to large shifts in continental climates and patterns of precipitation. The retrograde world is greener as the desert area shrinks. Deep water formation shifts from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific with subsequent changes in ocean overturning. Over large areas of the Indian Ocean, cyanobacteria dominate over bulk phytoplankton.
Hao Ye, Andrew E. Dessler, and Wandi Yu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 4425–4437, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4425-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-4425-2018, 2018
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The deep convection in tropics can inject cloud ice into tropical tropopause layer (TTL), which moistens and increases water vapor there. We primarily study the spatial distribution of impacts from several physical processes on TTL water vapor from observations and trajectory model simulations. The analysis shows the potential moistening impact from evaporation of cloud ice on TTL water vapor. A chemistry–climate model is used to confirm the impact from evaporation of convective ice.
Allison A. Wing, Kevin A. Reed, Masaki Satoh, Bjorn Stevens, Sandrine Bony, and Tomoki Ohno
Geosci. Model Dev., 11, 793–813, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-793-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-793-2018, 2018
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RCEMIP, an intercomparison of multiple types of numerical models, is proposed. In RCEMIP, the climate system is modeled in an idealized manner with no spatial dependence of boundary conditions (i.e., sea surface temperature) or forcing (i.e., incoming sunlight). This set of simulations will be used to investigate how the amount of cloudiness changes with warming, how the clustering of clouds changes with warming, and how the state of the atmosphere in this idealized setup varies between models.
Kevin M. Smalley, Andrew E. Dessler, Slimane Bekki, Makoto Deushi, Marion Marchand, Olaf Morgenstern, David A. Plummer, Kiyotaka Shibata, Yousuke Yamashita, and Guang Zeng
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 8031–8044, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-8031-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-8031-2017, 2017
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This paper explains a new way to evaluate simulated lower-stratospheric water vapor. We use a multivariate linear regression to predict 21st century lower stratospheric water vapor within 12 chemistry climate models using tropospheric warming, the Brewer–Dobson circulation, and the quasi-biennial oscillation as predictors. This methodology produce strong fits to simulated water vapor, and potentially represents a superior method to evaluate model trends in lower-stratospheric water vapor.
Rieke Heinze, Christopher Moseley, Lennart Nils Böske, Shravan Kumar Muppa, Vera Maurer, Siegfried Raasch, and Bjorn Stevens
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 7083–7109, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-7083-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-7083-2017, 2017
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High-resolution multi-week simulations of a measurement campaign are evaluated with respect to mean boundary layer quantities and turbulence statistics. Two models are used in a semi-idealized setup through forcing, with output from a coarser-scale model to account for the larger-scale conditions. The boundary layer depth is in principal agreement with observations. Turbulence statistics like variance profiles agree satisfactorily with measurements.
Bjorn Stevens, Stephanie Fiedler, Stefan Kinne, Karsten Peters, Sebastian Rast, Jobst Müsse, Steven J. Smith, and Thorsten Mauritsen
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 433–452, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-433-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-433-2017, 2017
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A simple analytic description of aerosol optical properties and their main effects on clouds is developed and described. The analytic description is easy to use and easy to modify and should aid experimentation to help understand how aerosol radiative and cloud interactions effect climate and circulation. The climatology is recommended for adoption by models participating in the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project.
Mark J. Webb, Timothy Andrews, Alejandro Bodas-Salcedo, Sandrine Bony, Christopher S. Bretherton, Robin Chadwick, Hélène Chepfer, Hervé Douville, Peter Good, Jennifer E. Kay, Stephen A. Klein, Roger Marchand, Brian Medeiros, A. Pier Siebesma, Christopher B. Skinner, Bjorn Stevens, George Tselioudis, Yoko Tsushima, and Masahiro Watanabe
Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 359–384, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-359-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-359-2017, 2017
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The Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) aims to improve understanding of cloud-climate feedback mechanisms and evaluation of cloud processes and cloud feedbacks in climate models. CFMIP also aims to improve understanding of circulation, regional-scale precipitation and non-linear changes. CFMIP is contributing to the 6th phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) by coordinating a hierarchy of targeted experiments with cloud-related model outputs.
Matthew Toohey, Bjorn Stevens, Hauke Schmidt, and Claudia Timmreck
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 4049–4070, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-4049-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-4049-2016, 2016
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Stratospheric sulfate aerosols from volcanic eruptions have a significant impact on the Earth's climate. The Easy Volcanic Aerosol (EVA) volcanic forcing generator provides a tool whereby the optical properties of volcanic aerosols can be included in climate model simulations in a self-consistent, complete, and flexible manner. EVA is based on satellite observations of the 1991 Pinatubo eruption but can be applied to any real or hypothetical eruption of interest.
Robert Pincus, Piers M. Forster, and Bjorn Stevens
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 3447–3460, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3447-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3447-2016, 2016
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This paper describes an experimental protocol to understand the changes in energy balance (the "radiative forcing") that arise due to changes in atmospheric composition and why this value is not the same across climate models. The protocol includes a way to determine the total forcing to which each model is subjected, experiments designed at teasing out why certain errors occur, and experiments to identify any robust signals caused by atmospheric particles from human activities.
Veronika Eyring, Sandrine Bony, Gerald A. Meehl, Catherine A. Senior, Bjorn Stevens, Ronald J. Stouffer, and Karl E. Taylor
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 1937–1958, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1937-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1937-2016, 2016
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The objective of CMIP is to better understand past, present, and future climate change in a multi-model context. CMIP's increasing importance and scope is a tremendous success story, but the need to address an ever-expanding range of scientific questions arising from more and more research communities has made it necessary to revise the organization of CMIP. In response to these challenges, we have adopted a more federated structure for the sixth phase of CMIP (i.e. CMIP6) and subsequent phases.
T. Wang, A. E. Dessler, M. R. Schoeberl, W. J. Randel, and J.-E. Kim
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 3517–3526, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-3517-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-3517-2015, 2015
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We investigated the impacts of vertical temperature structures on trajectory simulations of stratospheric dehydration and water vapor by using 1) MERRA temperatures on model levels; 2) GPS temperatures at finer vertical resolutions; and 3) adjusted MERRA temperatures with finer vertical structures induced by waves. We show that despite the fact that temperatures at finer vertical structures tend to dry air by 0.1-0.3ppmv, the interannual variability in different runs is essentially the same.
M. Mech, E. Orlandi, S. Crewell, F. Ament, L. Hirsch, M. Hagen, G. Peters, and B. Stevens
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 7, 4539–4553, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-4539-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-7-4539-2014, 2014
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Here the High Altitude and LOng range research aircraft Microwave Package (HAMP) is introduced. The package consists
of three passive radiometer modules with 26 channels between 22
and 183 GHz and a 36 GHz Doppler cloud radar. The manuscript
describes the instrument specifications, the installation in the aircraft, and the operation. Furthermore, results from simulation
and retrieval studies, as well as measurements from a first test
campaign, are shown.
T. Wang, W. J. Randel, A. E. Dessler, M. R. Schoeberl, and D. E. Kinnison
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 7135–7147, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7135-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7135-2014, 2014
M. Tjernström, C. Leck, C. E. Birch, J. W. Bottenheim, B. J. Brooks, I. M. Brooks, L. Bäcklin, R. Y.-W. Chang, G. de Leeuw, L. Di Liberto, S. de la Rosa, E. Granath, M. Graus, A. Hansel, J. Heintzenberg, A. Held, A. Hind, P. Johnston, J. Knulst, M. Martin, P. A. Matrai, T. Mauritsen, M. Müller, S. J. Norris, M. V. Orellana, D. A. Orsini, J. Paatero, P. O. G. Persson, Q. Gao, C. Rauschenberg, Z. Ristovski, J. Sedlar, M. D. Shupe, B. Sierau, A. Sirevaag, S. Sjogren, O. Stetzer, E. Swietlicki, M. Szczodrak, P. Vaattovaara, N. Wahlberg, M. Westberg, and C. R. Wheeler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 2823–2869, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-2823-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-2823-2014, 2014
M. D. Shupe, P. O. G. Persson, I. M. Brooks, M. Tjernström, J. Sedlar, T. Mauritsen, S. Sjogren, and C. Leck
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 9379–9399, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-9379-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-9379-2013, 2013
M. R. Schoeberl, A. E. Dessler, and T. Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 7783–7793, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7783-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-7783-2013, 2013
Related subject area
Subject: Radiation | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
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
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
Trends in observed surface solar radiation and their causes in Brazil in the first 2 decades of the 21st century
Modeling study of the snow darkening effect by black carbon deposition over the Arctic during the melting period
Spatial variability and future evolution of surface solar radiation over Northern France and Benelux: a regional climate model approach
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
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
The early summertime Saharan heat low: sensitivity of the radiation budget and atmospheric heating to water vapour and dust aerosol
The role of 1-D and 3-D radiative heating in the organization of shallow cumulus convection and the formation of cloud streets
Modeling the erythemal surface diffuse irradiance fraction for Badajoz, Spain
Disk and circumsolar radiances in the presence of ice clouds
Effects of 3-D thermal radiation on the development of a shallow cumulus cloud field
Regional and seasonal radiative forcing by perturbations to aerosol and ozone precursor emissions
The spectral signature of cloud spatial structure in shortwave irradiance
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.
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.
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.
Zilu Zhang, Libo Zhou, and Meigen Zhang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1717, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1717, 2024
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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 East Siberia. The impact is strongly linked to BC mass, with deep snowpacks showing greater sensitivity. Snow melt and land‒atmosphere interactions are crucial. High-resolution modeling is necessary to better understand these effects on Arctic climate change.
Gabriel Chesnoiu, Isabelle Chiapello, Nicolas Ferlay, Pierre Nabat, Marc Mallet, and Véronique Riffault
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1174, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1174, 2024
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ALADIN regional climate model at 12.5 km resolution allows to evaluate the evolution of surface solar radiation (SSR) and key associated atmospheric parameters. Over the Northern France/Benelux region, 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 highlight large decreases of SSR for SSP3-7.0.
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 %.
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.
Netsanet K. Alamirew, Martin C. Todd, Claire L. Ryder, John H. Marsham, and Yi Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 1241–1262, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-1241-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-1241-2018, 2018
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This paper quantifies the radiative effects of dust and water vapour in the Saharan heat low. Dust has a warming effect at the top of the atmosphere while cooling the surface. Water vapour has a warming effect both at the top of atmosphere and the surface. We find dust and water vapour have similar effects in driving the variability in the top-of-atmosphere radiative budget, while dust has a stronger effect than water vapour in controlling day-to-day variability of the surface radiative budget.
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.
Guadalupe Sanchez, Antonio Serrano, and María Luisa Cancillo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 12697–12708, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-12697-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-12697-2017, 2017
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This study proposes models to estimate the UVER diffuse irradiance, which means, at least, 40 % of the ultraviolet solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface at mid-latitudes. These models are inspired by expressions originally used to estimate total diffuse fraction and rely on variables commonly available to favor their applicability. The best model in this paper performs better than previous approaches and no additional information about the cloud or aerosol layer is needed.
Päivi Haapanala, Petri Räisänen, Greg M. McFarquhar, Jussi Tiira, Andreas Macke, Michael Kahnert, John DeVore, and Timo Nousiainen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 6865–6882, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6865-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-6865-2017, 2017
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The dependence of solar-disk and circumsolar radiances on ice cloud
properties is studied with a Monte Carlo radiative transfer model. Ice
crystal roughness (or more generally, non-ideality) is found to be the
most important parameter influencing the circumsolar radiance, and ice
crystal sizes and shapes also play significant roles. When comparing
with radiances measured with the SAM instrument, rough ice crystals
reproduce the measurements better than idealized smooth ice crystals do.
Carolin Klinger, Bernhard Mayer, Fabian Jakub, Tobias Zinner, Seung-Bu Park, and Pierre Gentine
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 5477–5500, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5477-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-5477-2017, 2017
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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.
Nicolas Bellouin, Laura Baker, Øivind Hodnebrog, Dirk Olivié, Ribu Cherian, Claire Macintosh, Bjørn Samset, Anna Esteve, Borgar Aamaas, Johannes Quaas, and Gunnar Myhre
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 13885–13910, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-13885-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-13885-2016, 2016
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This study uses global climate models to quantify how strongly man-made emissions of selected pollutants modify the energy budget of the Earth. The pollutants studied interact directly and indirectly with sunlight and terrestrial radiation and remain a relatively short time in the atmosphere, leading to regional and seasonal variations in their impacts. This new data set is useful to compare the potential climate impacts of different pollutants in support of policies to reduce climate change.
Shi Song, K. Sebastian Schmidt, Peter Pilewskie, Michael D. King, Andrew K. Heidinger, Andi Walther, Hironobu Iwabuchi, Gala Wind, and Odele M. Coddington
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 13791–13806, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-13791-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-13791-2016, 2016
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The radiative effects of spatially complex cloud fields are notoriously difficult to estimate and are afflicted with errors up to ±50 % of the incident solar radiation. We find that horizontal photon transport, the leading cause for these three-dimensional effects, manifests itself through a spectral fingerprint – a new observable that holds promise for reducing the errors associated with spatial complexity by moving the problem to the spectral dimension.
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Short summary
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.
One of the most important parameters in climate science is the equilibrium climate sensitivity...
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