| 1. |
- Andrews, Timothy, et al.
(författare)
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On the Effect of Historical SST Patterns on Radiative Feedback
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. - 2169-897X .- 2169-8996. ; 127:18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigate the dependence of radiative feedback on the pattern of sea-surface temperature (SST) change in 14 Atmospheric General Circulation Models (AGCMs) forced with observed variations in SST and sea-ice over the historical record from 1871 to near-present. We find that over 1871–1980, the Earth warmed with feedbacks largely consistent and strongly correlated with long-term climate sensitivity feedbacks (diagnosed from corresponding atmosphere-ocean GCM abrupt-4xCO2 simulations). Post 1980, however, the Earth warmed with unusual trends in tropical Pacific SSTs (enhanced warming in the west, cooling in the east) and cooling in the Southern Ocean that drove climate feedback to be uncorrelated with—and indicating much lower climate sensitivity than—that expected for long-term CO2 increase. We show that these conclusions are not strongly dependent on the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) II SST data set used to force the AGCMs, though the magnitude of feedback post 1980 is generally smaller in nine AGCMs forced with alternative HadISST1 SST boundary conditions. We quantify a “pattern effect” (defined as the difference between historical and long-term CO2 feedback) equal to 0.48 ± 0.47 [5%–95%] W m−2 K−1 for the time-period 1871–2010 when the AGCMs are forced with HadISST1 SSTs, or 0.70 ± 0.47 [5%–95%] W m−2 K−1 when forced with AMIP II SSTs. Assessed changes in the Earth's historical energy budget agree with the AGCM feedback estimates. Furthermore satellite observations of changes in top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes since 1985 suggest that the pattern effect was particularly strong over recent decades but may be waning post 2014.
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| 2. |
- Annan, James D., et al.
(författare)
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A new global surface temperature reconstruction for the Last Glacial Maximum
- 2022
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Ingår i: Climate of the Past. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1814-9324 .- 1814-9332. ; 18:8, s. 1883-1896
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a new reconstruction of surface air temperature and sea surface temperature for the Last Glacial Maximum. The method blends model fields and sparse proxy-based point estimates through a data assimilation approach. Our reconstruction updates that of Annan and Hargreaves (2013), using the full range of general circulation model (GCM) simulations which contributed to three generations of the PMIP database, three major compilations of gridded sea surface temperature (SST) and surface air temperature (SAT) estimates from proxy data, and an improved methodology based on an ensemble Kalman filter. Our reconstruction has a global annual mean surface air temperature anomaly of −4.5 ± 0.9◦C relative to the pre-industrial climate. This is slightly colder than the previous estimate of Annan and Hargreaves (2013), with an upwards revision on the uncertainty due to different methodological assumptions. It is, however, substantially less cold than the recent reconstruction of Tierney et al. (2020). We show that the main reason for this discrepancy is in the choice of prior. We recommend the use of the multi-model ensemble of opportunity as potentially offering a credible prior, but it is important that the range of models included in the PMIP ensembles represent the main sources of uncertainty as realistically and comprehensively as practicable if they are to be used in this way.
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| 3. |
- Annan, James D., et al.
(författare)
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What could we learn about climate sensitivity from variability in the surface temperature record?
- 2020
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Ingår i: Earth System Dynamics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 2190-4979 .- 2190-4987. ; 11:3, s. 709-719
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We examine what can be learnt about climate sensitivity from variability in the surface air temperature record over the instrumental period, from around 1880 to the present. While many previous studies have used trends in observational time series to constrain equilibrium climate sensitivity, it has also been argued that temporal variability may also be a powerful constraint. We explore this question in the context of a simple widely used energy balance model of the climate system. We consider two recently proposed summary measures of variability and also show how the full information content can be optimally used in this idealised scenario. We find that the constraint provided by variability is inherently skewed, and its power is inversely related to the sensitivity itself, discriminating most strongly between low sensitivity values and weakening substantially for higher values. It is only when the sensitivity is very low that the variability can provide a tight constraint. Our investigations take the form of perfect model experiments, in which we make the optimistic assumption that the model is structurally perfect and all uncertainties (including the true parameter values and nature of internal variability noise) are correctly characterised. Therefore the results might be interpreted as a best-case scenario for what we can learn from variability, rather than a realistic estimate of this. In these experiments, we find that for a moderate sensitivity of 2.5 degrees C, a 150-year time series of pure internal variability will typically support an estimate with a 5 %-95% range of around 5 degrees C (e.g. 1.9-6.8 degrees C). Total variability including that due to the forced response, as inferred from the detrended observational record, can provide a stronger constraint with an equivalent 5 %-95 % posterior range of around 4 degrees C (e.g. 1.8-6.0 degrees C) even when uncertainty in aerosol forcing is considered. Using a statistical summary of variability based on autocorrelation and the magnitude of residuals after detrending proves somewhat less powerful as a constraint than the full time series in both situations. Our results support the analysis of variability as a potentially useful tool in helping to constrain equilibrium climate sensitivity but suggest caution in the interpretation of precise results.
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| 4. |
- Bellouin, N., et al.
(författare)
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Bounding Global Aerosol Radiative Forcing of Climate Change
- 2020
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Ingår i: Reviews of geophysics. - 8755-1209 .- 1944-9208. ; 58:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aerosols interact with radiation and clouds. Substantial progress made over the past 40 years in observing, understanding, and modeling these processes helped quantify the imbalance in the Earth's radiation budget caused by anthropogenic aerosols, called aerosol radiative forcing, but uncertainties remain large. This review provides a new range of aerosol radiative forcing over the industrial era based on multiple, traceable, and arguable lines of evidence, including modeling approaches, theoretical considerations, and observations. Improved understanding of aerosol absorption and the causes of trends in surface radiative fluxes constrain the forcing from aerosol-radiation interactions. A robust theoretical foundation and convincing evidence constrain the forcing caused by aerosol-driven increases in liquid cloud droplet number concentration. However, the influence of anthropogenic aerosols on cloud liquid water content and cloud fraction is less clear, and the influence on mixed-phase and ice clouds remains poorly constrained. Observed changes in surface temperature and radiative fluxes provide additional constraints. These multiple lines of evidence lead to a 68% confidence interval for the total aerosol effective radiative forcing of -1.6 to -0.6Wm(-2), or -2.0 to -0.4Wm(-2) with a 90% likelihood. Those intervals are of similar width to the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment but shifted toward more negative values. The uncertainty will narrow in the future by continuing to critically combine multiple lines of evidence, especially those addressing industrial-era changes in aerosol sources and aerosol effects on liquid cloud amount and on ice clouds. Plain Language Summary Human activities emit into the atmosphere small liquid and solid particles called aerosols. Those aerosols change the energy budget of the Earth and trigger climate changes, by scattering and absorbing solar and terrestrial radiation and playing important roles in the formation of cloud droplets and ice crystals. But because aerosols are much more varied in their chemical composition and much more heterogeneous in their spatial and temporal distributions than greenhouse gases, their perturbation to the energy budget, called radiative forcing, is much more uncertain. This review uses traceable and arguable lines of evidence, supported by aerosol studies published over the past 40 years, to quantify that uncertainty. It finds that there are two chances out of three that aerosols from human activities have increased scattering and absorption of solar radiation by 14% to 29% and cloud droplet number concentration by 5 to 17% in the period 2005-2015 compared to the year 1850. Those increases exert a radiative forcing that offsets between a fifth and a half of the radiative forcing by greenhouse gases. The degree to which human activities affect natural aerosol levels, and the response of clouds, and especially ice clouds, to aerosol perturbations remain particularly uncertain.
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| 5. |
- Brooks, Ian M., et al.
(författare)
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The Turbulent Structure of the Arctic Summer Boundary Layer During The Arctic Summer Cloud-Ocean Study
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. - 2169-897X .- 2169-8996. ; 122:18, s. 9685-9704
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The mostly ice covered Arctic Ocean is dominated by low-level liquid-or mixed-phase clouds. Turbulence within stratocumulus is primarily driven by cloud top cooling that induces convective instability. Using a suite of in situ and remote sensing instruments we characterize turbulent mixing in Arctic stratocumulus, and for the first time we estimate profiles of the gradient Richardson number at relatively high resolution in both time (10 min) and altitude (10 m). It is found that the mixing occurs both within the cloud, as expected, and by wind shear instability near the surface. About 75% of the time these two layers are separated by a stably stratified inversion at 100-200 m altitude. Exceptions are associated with low cloud bases that allow the cloud-driven turbulence to reach the surface. The results imply that turbulent coupling between the surface and the cloud is sporadic or intermittent.Plain Language Summary: The lower atmosphere over the summertime Arctic Ocean often consists of two well-mixed layers-a surface mixed layer and a cloud mixed layer-that are separated by a weak decoupling layer at about 100 to 300 m above the surface. In these cases, the cloud cannot interact directly with the surface. Large-scale forecast and climate models consistently fail to reproduce this observed structure and may thus fail to correctly reproduce the cloud properties and the amount of energy absorbed by or emitted from the surface as solar and infrared radiation. This contributes to errors in reproducing changes in sea ice concentration over time. Here we use measurements made in the central Arctic to study the processes controlling whether or not the cloud is coupled to the surface. The effect of wind at the surface is found not to be a controlling factor. The depth of the cloud mixed layer is critical, but the multiple processes influencing it cannot be separated using the data available here. However, cooling at cloud top by infrared radiation is key, as is the extension of cloud into the temperature inversion-a unique feature of Arctic clouds.
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| 6. |
- Flynn, Clare Marie, et al.
(författare)
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Hadley Cell Size and Strength Responses Depend on Turbulent Drag
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. - 0022-4928 .- 1520-0469. ; 80:4, s. 1047-1064
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The position and strength of the Hadley cell circulation determine the habitable zones in the tropics, yet our understanding of and ability to predict changes in the circulation is limited. One potentially important source of uncertainty is the dependence of the Hadley cell on turbulent drag. Here, the sensitivity of the Hadley cell and associated features such as the intertropical convergence zone to variations in the magnitude of the turbulent drag is explored with an atmospheric general circulation model in aquaplanet configuration. The tropical circulation and precipitation, and extratropical features such as the polar jet stream, displayed a strong sensitivity to the strength of the parameterized turbulent drag, with distinct low- or high-drag regimes. However, the response of the meridional heat transport produced a surprising departure from previous expectations: with greater drag, simulations exhibited less heat transport than low-drag simulations, which is in the opposite sense to that from Held and Hou. This may be due to the energetic constraints in the present model framework. When exposed to a uniform global warming, the response of the ITCZ precipitation depends strongly on the choice of drag, whereas most simulations exhibit a poleward expansion of the subtropics.
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| 7. |
- Flynn, Clare Marie, et al.
(författare)
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On the climate sensitivity and historical warming evolution in recent coupled model ensembles
- 2020
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 20:13, s. 7829-7842
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Earth's equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, along with the transient climate response (TCR) and greenhouse gas emissions pathways, determines the amount of future warming. Coupled climate models have in the past been important tools to estimate and understand ECS. ECS estimated from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models lies between 2.0 and 4.7 K (mean of 3.2 K), whereas in the latest CMIP6 the spread has increased to 1.8-5.5 K (mean of 3.7 K), with 5 out of 25 models exceeding 5 K. It is thus pertinent to understand the causes underlying this shift. Here we compare the CMIP5 and CMIP6 model ensembles and find a systematic shift between CMIP eras to be unexplained as a process of random sampling from modeled forcing and feedback distributions. Instead, shortwave feedbacks shift towards more positive values, in particular over the Southern Ocean, driving the shift towards larger ECS values in many of the models. These results suggest that changes in model treatment of mixed-phase cloud processes and changes to Antarctic sea ice representation are likely causes of the shift towards larger ECS. Somewhat surprisingly, CMIP6 models exhibit less historical warming than CMIP5 models, despite an increase in TCR between CMIP eras (mean TCR increased from 1.7 to 1.9 K). The evolution of the warming suggests, however, that several of the CMIP6 models apply too strong aerosol cooling, resulting in too weak mid-20th century warming compared to the instrumental record.
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| 8. |
- Flynn, Clare Marie, et al.
(författare)
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Strong aerosol cooling alone does not explain cold-biased mid-century temperatures in CMIP6 models
- 2023
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus Publications. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 23:23, s. 15121-15133
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The current generation of global climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) exhibits a surprisingly cold-biased ensemble-mean mid-20th century global-mean surface temperature anomaly, compared to the previous generation Phase 5 (CMIP5) and to the observed mid-century (1940-1970) temperature anomaly. Most CMIP6 models, 31 of 36 models in contrast to 17 of 27 CMIP5 models, are colder than the uncertainty range of the observed anomaly, indicating that the CMIP6 suppressed warming is not caused by a few cold models. However, no clear cause that sufficiently explains the tendency towards suppressed mid-20th century warming emerges. Whereas models that best match observations exclusively exhibit weaker aerosol forcing than that exhibited by colder models, there is not a clear relationship between mid-century temperatures and aerosol forcing. Likewise, no systematic differences emerge among other model aerosol representations, such as inclusion of aerosol-cloud interactions for ice clouds in the model or the type of aerosol model input data set used, nor variations in greenhouse gas forcing or climate sensitivity, that could explain the suppressed warming. This indicates the presence of another cause, or more likely a set of causes, of the suppressed warming in many CMIP6 models. Thus, the prospect of a strong constraint on present-day aerosol forcing based on the mid-century warming is weakened, even if it is encouraging that those models that do match the observed warming best all have relatively weak aerosol forcing.
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| 9. |
- Graversen, Rune G., et al.
(författare)
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Polar Amplification in CCSM4 : Contributions from the Lapse Rate and Surface Albedo Feedbacks
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Climate. - 0894-8755 .- 1520-0442. ; 27:12, s. 4433-4450
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A vertically nonuniform warming of the troposphere yields a lapse rate feedback by altering the infrared irradiance to space relative to that of a vertically uniform tropospheric warming. The lapse rate feedback is negative at low latitudes, as a result of moist convective processes, and positive at high latitudes, due to stable stratification conditions that effectively trap warming near the surface. It is shown that this feedback pattern leads to polar amplification of the temperature response induced by a radiative forcing. The results are obtained by suppressing the lapse rate feedback in the Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4). The lapse rate feedback accounts for 15% of the Arctic amplification and 20% of the amplification in the Antarctic region. The fraction of the amplification that can be attributed to the surface albedo feedback, associated with melting of snow and ice, is 40% in the Arctic and 65% in Antarctica. It is further found that the surface albedo and lapse rate feedbacks interact considerably at high latitudes to the extent that they cannot be considered independent feedback mechanisms at the global scale.
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| 10. |
- Graversen, Rune Grand, et al.
(författare)
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Reply : Communications arising
- 2008
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 455, s. E4-E5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 11. |
- Graversen, Rune G., et al.
(författare)
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Vertical structure of recent Arctic warming
- 2008
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 451:7174, s. 53-56
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Near-surface warming in the Arctic has been almost twice as large as the global average over recent decades1, 2, 3, 4, 5—a phenomenon that is known as the 'Arctic amplification'. The underlying causes of this temperature amplification remain uncertain. The reduction in snow and ice cover that has occurred over recent decades6, 7 may have played a role5, 8. Climate model experiments indicate that when global temperature rises, Arctic snow and ice cover retreats, causing excessive polar warming9, 10, 11. Reduction of the snow and ice cover causes albedo changes, and increased refreezing of sea ice during the cold season and decreases in sea-ice thickness both increase heat flux from the ocean to the atmosphere. Changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation, as well as cloud cover, have also been proposed to cause Arctic temperature amplification12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Here we examine the vertical structure of temperature change in the Arctic during the late twentieth century using reanalysis data. We find evidence for temperature amplification well above the surface. Snow and ice feedbacks cannot be the main cause of the warming aloft during the greater part of the year, because these feedbacks are expected to primarily affect temperatures in the lowermost part of the atmosphere, resulting in a pattern of warming that we only observe in spring. A significant proportion of the observed temperature amplification must therefore be explained by mechanisms that induce warming above the lowermost part of the atmosphere. We regress the Arctic temperature field on the atmospheric energy transport into the Arctic and find that, in the summer half-year, a significant proportion of the vertical structure of warming can be explained by changes in this variable. We conclude that changes in atmospheric heat transport may be an important cause of the recent Arctic temperature amplification.
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| 12. |
- Graversen, Rune G., et al.
(författare)
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Warm winds from the Pacific caused extensive Arctic sea-ice melt in summer 2007
- 2011
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Ingår i: Climate Dynamics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0930-7575 .- 1432-0894. ; 36:11-12, s. 2103-2112
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During summer 2007 the Arctic sea-ice shrank to the lowest extent ever observed. The role of the atmospheric energy transport in this extreme melt event is explored using the state-of-the-art ERA-Interim reanalysis data. We find that in summer 2007 there was an anomalous atmospheric flow of warm and humid air into the region that suffered severe melt. This anomaly was larger than during any other year in the data (1989-2008). Convergence of the atmospheric energy transport over this area led to positive anomalies of the downward longwave radiation and turbulent fluxes. In the region that experienced unusual ice melt, the net anomaly of the surface fluxes provided enough extra energy to melt roughly one meter of ice during the melting season. When the ocean successively became ice-free, the surface-albedo decreased causing additional absorption of shortwave radiation, despite the fact that the downwelling solar radiation was smaller than average. We argue that the positive anomalies of net downward longwave radiation and turbulent fluxes played a key role in initiating the 2007 extreme ice melt, whereas the shortwave-radiation changes acted as an amplifying feedback mechanism in response to the melt.
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| 13. |
- Gregory, J. M., et al.
(författare)
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How accurately can the climate sensitivity to CO2 be estimated from historical climate change?
- 2020
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Ingår i: Climate Dynamics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0930-7575 .- 1432-0894. ; 54:1-2, s. 129-157
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS, in K) to CO2 doubling is a large source of uncertainty in projections of future anthropogenic climate change. Estimates of ECS made from non-equilibrium states or in response to radiative forcings other than 2×CO2 are called “effective climate sensitivity” (EffCS, in K). Taking a “perfect-model” approach, using coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) experiments, we evaluate the accuracy with which CO2 EffCS can be estimated from climate change in the “historical” period (since about 1860). We find that (1) for statistical reasons, unforced variability makes the estimate of historical EffCS both uncertain and biased; it is overestimated by about 10% if the energy balance is applied to the entire historical period, 20% for 30-year periods, and larger factors for interannual variability, (2) systematic uncertainty in historical radiative forcing translates into an uncertainty of±30 to 45% (standard deviation) in historical EffCS, (3) the response to the changing relative importance of the forcing agents, principally CO2 and volcanic aerosol, causes historical EffCS to vary over multidecadal timescales by a factor of two. In recent decades it reached its maximum in the AOGCM historical experiment (similar to the multimodel-mean CO2 EffCS of 3.6 K from idealised experiments), but its minimum in the real world (1.6 K for an observational estimate for 1985–2011, similar to the multimodel-mean value for volcanic forcing). The real-world variations mean that historical EffCS underestimates CO2 EffCS by 30% when considering the entire historical period. The difference for recent decades implies that either unforced variability or the response to volcanic forcing causes a much stronger regional pattern of sea surface temperature change in the real world than in AOGCMs. We speculate that this could be explained by a deficiency in simulated coupled atmosphere–ocean feedbacks which reinforce the pattern (resembling the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation in some respects) that causes the low EffCS. We conclude that energy-balance estimates of CO2 EffCS are most accurate from periods unaffected by volcanic forcing. Atmosphere GCMs provided with observed sea surface temperature for the 1920s to the 1950s, which was such a period, give a range of about 2.0–4.5 K, agreeing with idealised CO2 AOGCM experiments; the consistency is a reason for confidence in this range as an estimate of CO2 EffCS. Unless another explosive volcanic eruption occurs, the first 30 years of the present century may give a more accurate energy-balance historical estimate of this quantity.
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| 14. |
- Hohenegger, Cathy, et al.
(författare)
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ICON-Sapphire : simulating the components of the Earth system and their interactions at kilometer and subkilometer scales
- 2023
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Ingår i: Geoscientific Model Development. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1991-959X .- 1991-9603. ; 16:2, s. 779-811
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- State-of-the-art Earth system models typically employ grid spacings of O(100 km), which is too coarse to explicitly resolve main drivers of the flow of energy and matter across the Earth system. In this paper, we present the new ICON-Sapphire model configuration, which targets a representation of the components of the Earth system and their interactions with a grid spacing of 10 km and finer. Through the use of selected simulation examples, we demonstrate that ICON-Sapphire can (i) be run coupled globally on seasonal timescales with a grid spacing of 5 km, on monthly timescales with a grid spacing of 2.5 km, and on daily timescales with a grid spacing of 1.25 km; (ii) resolve large eddies in the atmosphere using hectometer grid spacings on limited-area domains in atmosphere-only simulations; (iii) resolve submesoscale ocean eddies by using a global uniform grid of 1.25 km or a telescoping grid with the finest grid spacing at 530 m, the latter coupled to a uniform atmosphere; and (iv) simulate biogeochemistry in an ocean-only simulation integrated for 4 years at 10 km. Comparison of basic features of the climate system to observations reveals no obvious pitfalls, even though some observed aspects remain difficult to capture. The throughput of the coupled 5 km global simulation is 126 simulated days per day employing 21 % of the latest machine of the German Climate Computing Center. Extrapolating from these results, multi-decadal global simulations including interactive carbon are now possible, and short global simulations resolving large eddies in the atmosphere and submesoscale eddies in the ocean are within reach.
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| 15. |
- Huusko, Linnea L., et al.
(författare)
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Stronger Response to the Aerosol Indirect Effect Due To Cooling in Remote Regions
- 2022
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Ingår i: Geophysical Research Letters. - 0094-8276 .- 1944-8007. ; 49:21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is often assumed that effective radiative forcings, regardless of forcing agent, are additive in the temperature change. Using climate model simulations with abruptly applied aerosol forcing we find that the temperature response per unit forcing is larger if induced by aerosol-cloud interactions than directly by aerosols. The spatial patterns of forcing and temperature change show that aerosol-cloud interactions induce cooling over remote oceans in the extratropics, whereas the effect of increased emissions is localized around the emission sources primarily over tropical land. The results are consistent with ideas of how the patterns of sea surface temperature impact radiative feedbacks, and a large forcing efficacy of aerosol-cloud interactions could help explain previously observed intermodel spread in the response to aerosols.
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| 16. |
- Jiménez-de-la-Cuesta, Diego, et al.
(författare)
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Emergent constraints on Earth's transient and equilibrium response to doubled CO2 from post-1970s global warming
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature Geoscience. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1752-0894 .- 1752-0908. ; 12:11, s. 902-905
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Future global warming is determined by both greenhouse gas emission pathways and Earth's transient and equilibrium climate response to doubled atmospheric CO2. Energy-balance inference from the instrumental record typically yields central estimates for the transient response of around 1.3 K and the equilibrium response of 1.5-2.0 K, which is at the lower end of those from contemporary climate models. Uncertainty arises primarily from poorly known aerosol-induced cooling since the early industrialization era and a temporary cooling induced by evolving sea surface temperature patterns. Here we present an emergent constraint on post-1970s warming, taking advantage of the weakly varying aerosol cooling during this period. We derive a relationship between the transient response and the post-1970s warming in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models. We thereby constrain, with the observations, the transient response to 1.67 K (1.17-2.16 K, 5-95th percentiles). This is a 20% increase relative to energy-balance inference stemming from previously neglected upper-ocean energy storage. For the equilibrium climate sensitivity we obtain a best estimate of 2.83 K (1.72-4.12 K) contingent on the temporary pattern effects exhibited by climate models. If the real world's surface temperature pattern effects are substantially stronger, then the upper-bound equilibrium sensitivity may be higher than found here.
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| 17. |
- Jönsson, Aiden, 1991-, et al.
(författare)
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Net northward ocean heat transport modulates mean hemispheric cloud asymmetries
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Clouds in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) extratropics make up for the Northern Hemisphere (NH)’s greater tropical cloud cover and clear-sky albedo, making Earth’s planetary albedo hemispherically symmetric over the satellite record. Knowledge of a mechanism for maintaining hemispheric albedo symmetry would prove valuable for understanding cloud responses to external forcings. Using simulations of an Earth-like aquaplanet, we investigate the role of ocean heat transport (OHT) in determining hemispheric differences in cloud cover. With increasing northward cross-equatorial OHT, the SH becomes dominant in low cloud cover at all latitudes, while NH increases in high clouds are negated by reductions in low clouds. We describe a dynamical link between the increasing SH extratropical cloud cover and increasing NH tropical cloud cover with more northward cross-equatorial OHT. We investigate the effects of clouds and condensation on AHT responses, which increase southward AHT through latent heating in the extratropics and radiative effects in lower latitudes, aiding in reducing the hemispheric energy contrast. Because SH cloud increases are greater than NH cloud reductions, increasing cloud asymmetry with more northward cross-equatorial OHT leads to net increases in global cloud cover and cooling.
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| 18. |
- Jönsson, Aiden Robert, 1991-
(författare)
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Clouds and Earth's hemispheric albedo symmetry : How do clouds affect hemispheric contrasts in heat and energy flows?
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Earth's Northern and Southern Hemispheres (NH and SH, respectively) have significantly different properties: the NH has a higher concentration of bright land surface area and aerosol emissions than the SH, making the Earth's clear-sky albedo hemispherically asymmetric. However, satellite observations have shown that higher cloud amount and reflectivity in the SH exactly compensate for this, making Earth's planetary albedo hemispherically symmetric. A physical explanation for this symmetry has not yet been found, but because it would give constraints for global cloud cover and its features, discovery of one may be a powerful tool in predicting the behavior of clouds in a changing climate.The first chapter of this thesis investigates the hemispheric albedo symmetry in observations, and finds that its variability primarily stems from the tropics. General circulation models (GCMs) exhibit a large spread in albedo asymmetry biases; comparing these with observations reveals that the extratropics control mean-state modeled albedo asymmetry.The second chapter compares the evolution of albedo asymmetries in GCMs when forced with increased CO2 concentrations. Models agree on an initial asymmetry response due to Arctic warming and albedo reductions, but diverge thereafter, with some models recovering their pre-industrial asymmetry. Those that recover their asymmetry do so via SH extratropical cloud loss and thus have stronger positive cloud feedbacks, illustrating that an albedo symmetry-maintaining mechanism could have implications for climate sensitivity.Sources of modeled albedo asymmetry biases are investigated in a single atmospheric GCM using a perturbed parameter ensemble in the third chapter. The most significant parameters to simulated albedo asymmetry are those controlling warm rain formation, turbulent dissipation, and sea salt aerosol emissions. Parameters controlling warm rain formation and turbulent dissipation primarily affect extratropical low cloud cover, and those affecting ice particle formation disproportionately affects SH midlatitude albedo. Parameter settings that reproduce the observed albedo symmetry tend towards more strongly positive shortwave cloud feedbacks.The link between hemispheric asymmetries in clouds and large-scale circulation is investigated with idealized atmospheric GCM experiments in the fourth chapter. Introducing hemispheric asymmetry in ocean heat fluxes that emulate heat divergence (convergence) in the SH (NH) drives an atmospheric response that qualitatively reproduces the observed cloud distribution. We conclude that the hemispheric albedo symmetry is not possible without implicating surface forcing from ocean circulation and heat transport.
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| 19. |
- Keil, Paul, et al.
(författare)
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Multiple drivers of the North Atlantic warming hole
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature Climate Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1758-678X .- 1758-6798. ; 10:7, s. 667-671
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The North Atlantic ocean warming hole has been linked to reduced tropical heat import. Model simulations show an anthropogenically forced increased heat export poleward from the region, by overturning and gyre circulation, and shortwave cloud feedback control the warming hole formation and growth. Despite global warming, a region in the North Atlantic ocean has been observed to cool, a phenomenon known as the warming hole. Its emergence has been linked to a slowdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which leads to a reduced ocean heat transport into the warming hole region. Here we show that, in addition to the reduced low-latitude heat import, increased ocean heat transport out of the region into higher latitudes and a shortwave cloud feedback dominate the formation and temporal evolution of the warming hole under greenhouse gas forcing. In climate model simulations of the historical period, the low-latitude Atlantic meridional overturning circulation decline does not emerge from natural variability, whereas the accelerating heat transport to higher latitudes is clearly attributable to anthropogenic forcing. Both the overturning and the gyre circulation contribute to the increased high-latitude ocean heat transport, and therefore are critical to understand the past and future evolutions of the warming hole.
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| 20. |
- Langen, Peter L., et al.
(författare)
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Separation of Contributions from Radiative Feedbacks to Polar Amplification on an Aquaplanet
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Climate. - 0894-8755 .- 1520-0442. ; 25:8, s. 3010-3024
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When climate is forced by a doubling of CO2, a number of feedback processes are induced, such as changes of water vapor, clouds, and surface albedo. Here the CO2 forcing and concomitant feedbacks are studied individually using a general circulation model coupled to an aquaplanet mixed layer ocean. A technique for fixing the radiative effects of moisture and clouds by reusing these variables from 1 x CO2 and 2 x CO2 equilibrium climates in the model's radiation code allows for a detailed decomposition of forcings, feedbacks, and responses. The cloud feedback in this model is found to have a weak global average effect and surface albedo feedbacks have been eliminated. As in previous studies, the water vapor feedback is found to approximately double climate sensitivity, but while its radiative effect is strongly amplified at low latitudes, the resulting response displays about the same degree of polar amplification as the full all-feedbacks experiment. In fact, atmospheric energy transports are found to change in a way that yields the same meridional pattern of response as when the water vapor feedback is turned off. The authors conclude that while the water vapor feedback does not in itself lead to polar amplification by increasing the ratio of high-to low-latitude warming, it does double climate sensitivity both at low and high latitudes. A polar amplification induced by other feedbacks in the system, such as the Planck and lapse rate feedbacks here, is thus strengthened in the sense of increasing the difference in high-and low-latitude warming.
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| 21. |
- Lewis, Nicholas, et al.
(författare)
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Negligible Unforced Historical Pattern Effect on Climate Feedback Strength Found in HadISST-Based AMIP Simulations
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Climate. - 0894-8755 .- 1520-0442. ; 34:1, s. 39-55
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recently it has been suggested that natural variability in sea surface temperature (SST) patterns over the historical period causes a low bias in estimates of climate sensitivity based on instrumental records, in addition to that suggested by time variation of the climate feedback parameter in atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) coupled to dynamic oceans. This excess, unforced, historical pattern effect (the effect of evolving surface temperature patterns on climate feedback strength) has been found in simulations performed using GCMs driven by AMIPII SST and sea ice changes (amipPiForcing). Here we show, in both amipPiForcing experiments with one GCM and by using Green's functions derived from another GCM, that whether such an unforced historical pattern effect is found depends on the underlying SST dataset used. When replacing the usual AMIPII SSTs with those from the HadISST1 dataset in amipPiForcing experiments, with sea ice changes unaltered, the first GCM indicates pattern effects that are indistinguishable from the forced pattern effect of the corresponding coupled GCM. Diagnosis of pattern effects using Green's functions derived from the second GCM supports this result for five out of six non-AMIPII SST reconstruction datasets. Moreover, internal variability in coupled GCMs is rarely sufficient to account for an unforced historical pattern effect of even one-quarter the strength previously reported. The presented evidence indicates that, if unforced pattern effects have been as small over the historical record as our findings suggest, they are unlikely to significantly bias climate sensitivity estimates that are based on long-term instrumental observations and account for forced pattern effects obtained from GCMs.
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| 22. |
- Loeb, Norman G., et al.
(författare)
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New Generation of Climate Models Track Recent Unprecedented Changes in Earth's Radiation Budget Observed by CERES
- 2020
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Ingår i: Geophysical Research Letters. - 0094-8276 .- 1944-8007. ; 47:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We compare top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes observed by the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) and simulated by seven general circulation models forced with observed sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice boundary conditions. In response to increased SSTs along the equator and over the eastern Pacific (EP) following the so-called global warming hiatus of the early 21st century, simulated TOA flux changes are remarkably similar to CERES. Both show outgoing shortwave and longwave TOA flux changes that largely cancel over the west and central tropical Pacific, and large reductions in shortwave flux for EP low-cloud regions. A model's ability to represent changes in the relationship between global mean net TOA flux and surface temperature depends upon how well it represents shortwave flux changes in low-cloud regions, with most showing too little sensitivity to EP SST changes, suggesting a pattern effect that may be too weak compared to observations.
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| 23. |
- Mauritsen, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
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A total turbulent energy closure model for neutrally and stably stratified atmospheric boundary layers
- 2007
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Ingår i: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. - 0022-4928 .- 1520-0469. ; 64:11, s. 4113-4136
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents a turbulence closure for neutral and stratified atmospheric conditions. The closure is based on the concept of the total turbulent energy. The total turbulent energy is the sum of the turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent potential energy, which is proportional to the potential temperature variance. The closure uses recent observational findings to take into account the mean flow stability. These observations indicate that turbulent transfer of heat and momentum behaves differently under very stable stratification. Whereas the turbulent heat flux tends toward zero beyond a certain stability limit, the turbulent stress stays finite. The suggested scheme avoids the problem of self-correlation. The latter is an improvement over the widely used Monin–Obukhov-based closures. Numerous large-eddy simulations, including a wide range of neutral and stably stratified cases, are used to estimate likely values of two free constants. In a benchmark case the new turbulence closure performs indistinguishably from independent large-eddy simulations.
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| 24. |
- Mauritsen, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
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Blocking prediction in an ensemble forecasting system
- 2004
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Ingår i: Tellus. ; 56A, s. 218-228
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The predictability of the atmospheric blocking phenomenon is investigated using the output of the high-resolution ensemble prediction system of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.The output from the model is analysed using an objective blocking index. This is compared with the theory of Charney and DeVore that blocking is a large-scale non-linear phenomenon. A consequence of the non-linearity is that in some cases multiple quasi-stationary atmospheric states can exist for the same set of boundary conditions.It is found that the model in general produces too few blocks. Good agreement is found between the models lacking ability to predict blocking frequency and the systematic errors of 500-hPa geopotential height. It is found that there exists a limit, in the middle of the medium range, beyond which forecasts of blocking onset should be considered as probabilistic rather than dynamical. Inspection of individual blocking events adds new support to the idea that atmospheric blocking can be explained using the Charney–DeVore model.
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| 25. |
- Mauritsen, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
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Climate feedback efficiency and synergy
- 2013
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Ingår i: Climate Dynamics. - : Springer. - 0930-7575 .- 1432-0894. ; 41:9-10, s. 2539-2554
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Earth's climate sensitivity to radiative forcing induced by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 is determined by feedback mechanisms, including changes in atmospheric water vapor, clouds and surface albedo, that act to either amplify or dampen the response. The climate system is frequently interpreted in terms of a simple energy balance model, in which it is assumed that individual feedback mechanisms are additive and act independently. Here we test these assumptions by systematically controlling, or locking, the radiative feedbacks in a state-of-the-art climate model. The method is shown to yield a near-perfect decomposition of change into partial temperature contributions pertaining to forcing and each of the feedbacks. In the studied model water vapor feedback stands for about half the temperature change, CO2-forcing about one third, while cloud and surface albedo feedback contributions are relatively small. We find a close correspondence between forcing, feedback and partial surface temperature response for the water vapor and surface albedo feedbacks, while the cloud feedback is inefficient in inducing surface temperature change. Analysis suggests that cloud-induced warming in the upper tropical troposphere, consistent with rising convective cloud anvils in a warming climate enhances the negative lapse-rate feedback, thereby offsetting some of the warming that would otherwise be attributable to this positive cloud feedback. By subsequently combining feedback mechanisms we find a positive synergy acting between the water vapor feedback and the cloud feedback; that is, the combined cloud and water vapor feedback is greater than the sum of its parts. Negative synergies surround the surface albedo feedback, as associated cloud and water vapor changes dampen the anticipated climate change induced by retreating snow and ice. Our results highlight the importance of treating the coupling between clouds, water vapor and temperature in a deepening troposphere.
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