Articles | Volume 25, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1477-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-1477-2025
Technical note
 | 
03 Feb 2025
Technical note |  | 03 Feb 2025

Technical note: Recommendations for diagnosing cloud feedbacks and rapid cloud adjustments using cloud radiative kernels

Mark D. Zelinka, Li-Wei Chao, Timothy A. Myers, Yi Qin, and Stephen A. Klein

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Short summary
Clouds lie at the heart of uncertainty in both climate sensitivity and radiative forcing, making it imperative to properly diagnose their radiative effects. Here we provide a recommended methodology and code base for the community to use in performing such diagnoses using cloud radiative kernels. We show that properly accounting for changes in obscuration of lower-level clouds by upper-level clouds is important for accurate diagnosis and attribution of cloud feedbacks and adjustments.
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