the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
An assessment of land energy balance over East Asia from multiple lines and the roles of Tibet Plateau, aerosols, and clouds
- 1Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
- 2State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
- 3National Meteorological Information Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China
- 4Laboratory for Climate Studies of China Meteorological Administration, National Climate Center, Beijing 100081, China
- 5State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
- 6Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
- 1Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
- 2State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
- 3National Meteorological Information Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China
- 4Laboratory for Climate Studies of China Meteorological Administration, National Climate Center, Beijing 100081, China
- 5State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
- 6Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract. With high emissions of aerosols and the known world’s “Third Pole” of the Tibet Plateau (TP) in East Asia, knowledge on the energy budget over this region is widely concerned. This study first attempts to estimate the present-day land energy balance over East Asia by combining surface and satellite observations, as well as the atmospheric reanalysis and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations. Compared to the global land budget, a substantially larger fraction of atmospheric shortwave radiation of 5.2 % is reflected, highly associated with the higher aerosol loadings and more clouds over East Asian land. While a slightly smaller fraction of atmospheric shortwave absorption of 0.6 % is unexpectedly estimated, possibly related to the lower water vapor content effects due to the thinner air over the TP to overcompensate for the aerosol and cloud effects over East Asian land. The weaker greenhouse effect and fewer low clouds due to the TP are very likely the causes for the smaller fraction of East Asian-land surface downward longwave radiation. Hence, high aerosol loadings, clouds, and the TP over East Asia play vital roles in the shortwave budgets, while the TP is responsible for the longwave budgets during this regional energy budget assessment. The further obtained cloud radiative effects suggest that the presence of clouds results in a larger cooling effect on the climate system over East Asian land than that over globe. This study helps understand the potential factors influencing the diversifying energy budget assessments over regions.
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Qiuyan Wang et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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CC1: 'Comment on acp-2022-451', Husi Letu, 08 Jul 2022
Full title: An assessment of land energy balance over East Asia from multiple lines and the roles of Tibet Plateau, aerosols, and clouds
Authors: Wang et al.
This paper investigated the land energy balance over East Asia using several data, like surface observation data, satellite data, reanalysis data, and CMIP data. Results are interesting and indicate that a larger shortwave radiation of 5.2% is reflected and smaller shortwave absorption of 0.6% is estimated. In addition, cloud radiation effects (shortwave, longwave at the surface, atmosphere, and TOA) are also evaluated. Overall, this manuscript is clear. This study is of great significance to improve the new understanding of energy balance in East Asia. However, there are several issues that need to be taken care of before this paper becomes acceptable for publication.
Specific comments:
- In Figure 6, the surface energy is not balanced due to the lack of sensible heat flux and latent heat flux values.
- In Figure 7, the Spatial distributions of annual mean SSR biases derived from CERES, CMIP6 and ERA5 are both overestimated in the high value region, please try to explain the reason.
- The radiative effects and radiative forcing of aerosols are rarely discussed in this paper. How to distinguish the radiative effects of clouds and aerosols under the All-sky situation?
- The authors emphasize that the fewer low clouds due to the TP are very likely the causes for the smaller fraction of East Asian land surface downward longwave radiation. Is the conclusion that there are fewer low clouds over the TP consistent with the actual situation?
- L573, why do you select ERA5 surface LW radiation as the reference? Why not choose CERES-EBAF as the reference?
- It is better to introduce relative research (e.g., Li et al., Xu et al., Letu et al. 2022) in the introduction part.
Li, M., Letu, H., Peng, Y., Ishimoto, H., Lin, Y., Nakajima, T. Y., ... & Shi, J. (2022). Investigation of ice cloud modeling capabilities for the irregularly shaped Voronoi ice scattering models in climate simulations. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(7), 4809-4825.
Xu, J., Liang, S., & Jiang, B. (2022). A global long-term (1981–2019) daily land surface radiation budget product from AVHRR satellite data using a residual convolutional neural network. Earth System Science Data, 14(5), 2315-2341.
Letu, H., Nakajima, T. Y., Wang, T., Shang, H., Ma, R., Yang, K., ... & Shi, J. (2022). A new benchmark for surface radiation products over the East Asia–Pacific region retrieved from the Himawari-8/AHI next-generation geostationary satellite. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 103(3), E873-E888.
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RC1: 'Comment on acp-2022-451', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Jul 2022
This paper investigated the land energy balance over East Asia using several data, like surface observation data, satellite data, reanalysis data, and CMIP data. Results are interesting and indicate that a larger shortwave radiation of 5.2% is reflected and smaller shortwave absorption of 0.6% is estimated. In addition, cloud radiation effects (shortwave, longwave at the surface, atmosphere, and TOA) are also evaluated. Overall, this manuscript is clear. This study is of great significance to improve the new understanding of energy balance in East Asia. However, there are several issues that need to be taken care of before this paper becomes acceptable for publication.
Specific comments:
In Figure 6, the surface energy is not balanced due to the lack of sensible heat flux and latent heat flux values.
In Figure 7, the Spatial distributions of annual mean SSR biases derived from CERES, CMIP6 and ERA5 are both overestimated in the high value region, please try to explain the reason.
The radiative effects and radiative forcing of aerosols are rarely discussed in this paper. How to distinguish the radiative effects of clouds and aerosols under the All-sky situation?
The authors emphasize that the fewer low clouds due to the TP are very likely the causes for the smaller fraction of East Asian land surface downward longwave radiation. Is the conclusion that there are fewer low clouds over the TP consistent with the actual situation?
L573, why do you select ERA5 surface LW radiation as the reference? Why not choose CERES-EBAF as the reference?
It is better to introduce relative research (e.g., Li et al., Xu et al., Letu et al. 2022) in the introduction part.
Li, M., Letu, H., Peng, Y., Ishimoto, H., Lin, Y., Nakajima, T. Y., ... & Shi, J. (2022). Investigation of ice cloud modeling capabilities for the irregularly shaped Voronoi ice scattering models in climate simulations. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(7), 4809-4825.
Xu, J., Liang, S., & Jiang, B. (2022). A global long-term (1981–2019) daily land surface radiation budget product from AVHRR satellite data using a residual convolutional neural network. Earth System Science Data, 14(5), 2315-2341.
Letu, H., Nakajima, T. Y., Wang, T., Shang, H., Ma, R., Yang, K., ... & Shi, J. (2022). A new benchmark for surface radiation products over the East Asia–Pacific region retrieved from the Himawari-8/AHI next-generation geostationary satellite. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 103(3), E873-E888.
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RC2: 'Comment on acp-2022-451', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Jul 2022
This paper assessed the land energy balance over East Asia with surface measurements, satellite estimations, reanalysis and CMIP6 products. The author found a substantially larger fraction of atmospheric shortwave radiation of 5.2% is reflected and a slightly smaller fraction of atmospheric shortwave absorption of 0.6%. The author also investigated the cloud radiative effects and found the presence of clouds results in a larger cooling effect on the climate system over East Asian land than that over globe. The author also pointed out the role of Tibet Plateau in both SW and LW radiation balance.
The paper addresses an important and interesting topic, and I believe that this paper have the potential to be of great value to the scientific community. However, I have several concerns as outlined below. After addressing these concerns, I believe the work would be a good fit for publication.
- The topic of this paper is land energy balance over East Asia and the role of TP, aerosols and clouds. The author analyzed the cloud radiative effects in section5. However the author did not outlined the importance to study cloud radiative effects. I suggest to expand the discussion on the cloud radiative effects in introduction to emphasize the importance of authors analysis.
- This paper is lack of the discussion on the radiative effects of aerosols.
- Why the surface sites are divided into rural/urban categories? Is this related to surface properties or aerosol or both? Please explain.
- Table 1, the land-atmosphere net heat flux is worth known.
- Table 2, 17.2 W m-2 could be a large difference, the percentage-wise is worth known.
- Line602-613, “Comparisons…..OLR of 2.7%”, I suggest to show the the spatial distribution of CRE from reanalysis or satellite estimations or CMIP6 over East Asia in section 5 and the spatial distribution of net heat flux (from ERA5 or CMIP6) to support this conclusion on the role of TP.
Qiuyan Wang et al.
Qiuyan Wang et al.
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