Meteorological drivers of the low-cloud radiative feedback pattern effect and its uncertainty

Tam, Rachel Yuen Sum; Myers, Timothy A.; Zelinka, Mark D.; Proistosescu, Cristian; Lin, Yuan-Jen; Marvel, Kate

doi:10.5194/acp-26-4289-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-4289-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-4289-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 6

Research article

|

27 Mar 2026

Research article |

| 27 Mar 2026

Meteorological drivers of the low-cloud radiative feedback pattern effect and its uncertainty

Rachel Yuen Sum Tam, Timothy A. Myers, Mark D. Zelinka, Cristian Proistosescu, Yuan-Jen Lin, and Kate Marvel

Model code and software

Meteorological Cloud Radiative Kernel code T. A. Myers and M. Zelinka https://github.com/tamyers87/meteorological_cloud_radiative_kernels

ccf_project: Analysis code for Meteorological Drivers of the Low-Cloud Radiative Feedback Pattern Effect and its Uncertainty R. Y. S. Tam et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19208551

Short summary

This work identifies the key driver to the change of present and future climate response, known as the pattern effect, by breaking down low-cloud feedback as the radiative changes to meteorology and the meteorology changes to warming using a cloud controlling factor framework. We identify inversion strength in the Southern Ocean and the South East Pacific as the main driver to the pattern effect, and larger uncertainty remains in the sensitivities of radiative flux to meteorology.