Articles | Volume 24, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7331-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7331-2024
Research article
 | 
27 Jun 2024
Research article |  | 27 Jun 2024

General circulation models simulate negative liquid water path–droplet number correlations, but anthropogenic aerosols still increase simulated liquid water path

Johannes Mülmenstädt, Edward Gryspeerdt, Sudhakar Dipu, Johannes Quaas, Andrew S. Ackerman, Ann M. Fridlind, Florian Tornow, Susanne E. Bauer, Andrew Gettelman, Yi Ming, Youtong Zheng, Po-Lun Ma, Hailong Wang, Kai Zhang, Matthew W. Christensen, Adam C. Varble, L. Ruby Leung, Xiaohong Liu, David Neubauer, Daniel G. Partridge, Philip Stier, and Toshihiko Takemura

Related authors

Present-day correlations are insufficient to predict cloud albedo change by anthropogenic aerosols in E3SM v2
Naser Mahfouz, Johannes Mülmenstädt, and Susannah Burrows
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7253–7260, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7253-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7253-2024, 2024
Short summary
Droplet collection efficiencies inferred from satellite retrievals constrain effective radiative forcing of aerosol–cloud interactions
Charlotte M. Beall, Po-Lun Ma, Matthew W. Christensen, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Adam Varble, Kentaroh Suzuki, and Takuro Michibata
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 5287–5302, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5287-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-5287-2024, 2024
Short summary
Can GCMs represent cloud adjustments to aerosol–cloud interactions?
Johannes Mülmenstädt, Andrew S. Ackerman, Ann M. Fridlind, Meng Huang, Po-Lun Ma, Naser Mahfouz, Susanne E. Bauer, Susannah M. Burrows, Matthew W. Christensen, Sudhakar Dipu, Andrew Gettelman, L. Ruby Leung, Florian Tornow, Johannes Quaas, Adam C. Varble, Hailong Wang, Kai Zhang, and Youtong Zheng
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-778,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-778, 2024
Short summary
Evaluation of liquid cloud albedo susceptibility in E3SM using coupled eastern North Atlantic surface and satellite retrievals
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
Short summary
Earth-system-model evaluation of cloud and precipitation occurrence for supercooled and warm clouds over the Southern Ocean's Macquarie Island
McKenna W. Stanford, Ann M. Fridlind, Israel Silber, Andrew S. Ackerman, Greg Cesana, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Alain Protat, Simon Alexander, and Adrian McDonald
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 9037–9069, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9037-2023, 2023
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Climate and Earth System | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
Future reduction of cold extremes over East Asia due to thermodynamic and dynamic warming
Donghuan Li, Tianjun Zhou, Youcun Qi, Liwei Zou, Chao Li, Wenxia Zhang, and Xiaolong Chen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7347–7358, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7347-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7347-2024, 2024
Short summary
Global scenarios of anthropogenic mercury emissions
Flora Maria Brocza, Peter Rafaj, Robert Sander, Fabian Wagner, and Jenny Marie Jones
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7385–7404, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7385-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7385-2024, 2024
Short summary
Impact of Asian aerosols on the summer monsoon strongly modulated by regional precipitation biases
Zhen Liu, Massimo A. Bollasina, and Laura J. Wilcox
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7227–7252, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7227-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7227-2024, 2024
Short summary
Opinion: Optimizing climate models with process knowledge, resolution, and artificial intelligence
Tapio Schneider, L. Ruby Leung, and Robert C. J. Wills
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 7041–7062, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7041-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-7041-2024, 2024
Short summary
Assessing methane emissions from collapsing Venezuelan oil production using TROPOMI
Brian Nathan, Joannes D. Maasakkers, Stijn Naus, Ritesh Gautam, Mark Omara, Daniel J. Varon, Melissa P. Sulprizio, Lucas A. Estrada, Alba Lorente, Tobias Borsdorff, Robert J. Parker, and Ilse Aben
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6845–6863, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6845-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6845-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Ackerman, A., Kirkpatrick, M., Stevens, D., and Toon, O.: The impact of humidity above stratiform clouds on indirect aerosol climate forcing, Nature, 432, 1014–1017, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03174, 2004. a
AeroCom project: AeroCom Phase II indirect effect experiment, The Norwegian Meteorological Institute [data set], ssh://aerocom-users.met.no/metno/aerocom-users-database/AEROCOM-PHASE-II-IND3, 2016. a
Albrecht, B. A.: Aerosols, Cloud Microphysics, and Fractional Cloudiness, Science, 245, 1227–1230, 1989. a
Arola, A., Lipponen, A., Kolmonen, P., Virtanen, T. H., Bellouin, N., Grosvenor, D. P., Gryspeerdt, E., Quaas, J., and Kokkola, H.: Aerosol effects on clouds are concealed by natural cloud heterogeneity and satellite retrieval errors, Nat. Commun., 13, 7357, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34948-5, 2022. a, b
Bellouin, N., Quaas, J., Gryspeerdt, E., Kinne, S., Stier, P., Watson-Parris, D., Boucher, O., Carslaw, K. S., Christensen, M., Daniau, A.-L., Dufresne, J.-L., Feingold, G., Fiedler, S., Forster, P., Gettelman, A., Haywood, J. M., Lohmann, U., Malavelle, F., Mauritsen, T., McCoy, D. T., Myhre, G., Mülmenstädt, J., Neubauer, D., Possner, A., Rugenstein, M., Sato, Y., Schulz, M., Schwartz, S. E., Sourdeval, O., Storelvmo, T., Toll, V., Winker, D., and Stevens, B.: Bounding Global Aerosol Radiative Forcing of Climate Change, Rev. Geophys., 58, e2019RG000660, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019RG000660, 2020. a, b, c
Download
Short summary
Human activities release copious amounts of small particles called aerosols into the atmosphere. These particles change how much sunlight clouds reflect to space, an important human perturbation of the climate, whose magnitude is highly uncertain. We found that the latest climate models show a negative correlation but a positive causal relationship between aerosols and cloud water. This means we need to be very careful when we interpret observational studies that can only see correlation.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint