Back to Search
Start Over
The Atmospheric Pathway of the Cloud-Radiative Impact on the Circulation Response to Global Warming: Important and Uncertain.
- Source :
-
Journal of Climate . May2019, Vol. 32 Issue 10, p3051-3067. 17p. 1 Diagram, 3 Charts, 7 Graphs. - Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- Previous work showed that the poleward expansion of the annual-mean zonal-mean atmospheric circulation in response to global warming is strongly modulated by changes in clouds and their radiative heating of the surface and atmosphere. Here, a hierarchy and an ensemble of global climate models are used to study the circulation impact of changes in atmospheric cloud-radiative heating in the absence of changes in sea surface temperature (SST), which is referred to as the atmospheric pathway of the cloud-radiative impact. For the MPI-ESM model, the atmospheric pathway is responsible for about half of the total cloud-radiative impact, and in fact half of the total circulation response. Changes in atmospheric cloud-radiative heating are substantial in both the lower and upper troposphere. However, because SST is prescribed the atmospheric pathway is dominated by changes in upper-tropospheric cloud-radiative heating, which in large part results from the upward shift of high-level clouds. The poleward circulation expansion via the atmospheric pathway and changes in upper-tropospheric cloud-radiative heating are qualitatively robust across three global models, yet their magnitudes vary by a factor of 3. A substantial part of these magnitude differences are related to the upper-tropospheric radiative heating by high-level clouds in the present-day climate. A comparison with observations highlights the model deficits in representing the radiative heating by high-level clouds and indicates that reducing these deficits can contribute to improved predictions of regional climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 08948755
- Volume :
- 32
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Climate
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 136420210
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0810.1