A new method for diagnosing effective radiative forcing from aerosol–cloud interactions in climate models

Duran, Brandon M.; Wall, Casey J.; Lutsko, Nicholas J.; Michibata, Takuro; Ma, Po-Lun; Qin, Yi; Duffy, Margaret L.; Medeiros, Brian; Debolskiy, Matvey

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2123-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2123-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2123-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 4

Research article

|

19 Feb 2025

Research article |

| 19 Feb 2025

A new method for diagnosing effective radiative forcing from aerosol–cloud interactions in climate models

Brandon M. Duran, Casey J. Wall, Nicholas J. Lutsko, Takuro Michibata, Po-Lun Ma, Yi Qin, Margaret L. Duffy, Brian Medeiros, and Matvey Debolskiy

Data sets

Data from: A new method for diagnosing effective radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions in climate models Brandon M. Duran et al. https://doi.org/10.6075/J0P26ZF1

MCD06COSP_M3_MODIS – MODIS (Aqua/Terra) Cloud Properties Level 3 monthly, 1x1 degree grid NASA https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD06COSP_M3_MODIS.062

Interactive computing environment

modis_cloud_radiative_kernels Brandon M. Duran https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13839356

COSPv2.0 CFMIP https://github.com/CFMIP/COSPv2.0

aprp Mark Zelinka https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5514141

cloud-radiative-kernels Mark Zelinka https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5514136

New MODIS Joint Histograms Casey J. Wall et al. https://github.com/CFMIP/COSPv2.0/commit/d252f193137b54adff4cc5b8f40604f1832472fa

Short summary

We use satellite simulator data generated by global climate models to investigate how aerosol particles impact the radiative properties of liquid clouds. Specifically, we quantify the radiative perturbations arising from aerosol-driven changes in the number density of cloud droplets, the vertically integrated cloud water mass, and the cloud amount. Our results show that, in models, aerosol effects on the number density of cloud droplets contribute the most to anthropogenic climate forcing.