Albedo enhancement of marine clouds to counteract global warming: impacts on the hydrological cycle

Recent studies have shown that changes in solar radiation affect the hydrological cycle more strongly than equivalent CO₂ changes for the same change in global mean surface temperature. Thus, solar radiation management ??geoengineering?? proposals to completely offset global mean temperature increases by reducing the amount of absorbed sunlight might be expected to slow the global water cycle and reduce runoff over land. However, proposed countering of global warming by increasing the albedo of marine clouds would reduce surface solar radiation only over the oceans. Here, for an idealized scenario, we analyze the response of temperature and the hydrological cycle to increased reflection by clouds over the ocean using an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a mixed layer ocean model. When cloud droplets are reduced in size over all oceans uniformly to offset the temperature increase from a doubling of atmospheric CO₂, the global-mean precipitation and evaporation decreases by about 1.3% but runoff over land increases by 7.5% primarily due to increases over tropical land. In the model, more reflective marine clouds cool the atmospheric column over ocean. The result is a sinking motion over oceans and upward motion over land. We attribute the increased runoff over land to this increased upward motion over land when marine clouds are made more reflective. Our results suggest that, in contrast to other proposals to increase planetary albedo, offsetting mean global warming by reducing marine cloud droplet size does not necessarily lead to a drying, on average, of the continents. However, we note that the changes in precipitation, evaporation and P-E are dominated by small but significant areas, and given the highly idealized nature of this study, a more thorough and broader assessment would be required for proposals of altering marine cloud properties on a large scale.     

δ函数在云的反射率计算中的应用

本文证明了二流模式和s-w模式,两种计算散射大气反射率的简化方法,都具有δ-相函数的特点.结合δ函数并通过由二流模式得到的计算结果作为一次近似再代入辐射传输方程中而导出一种更精确计算云层反照率的简单方法.     

The application of delta function to the albedo of clouds

It is verified that there is δ-phase function characteristic in both of TS and SW simplified models, and on the basis of TS model, a more accurate model calculating the albedo and transmissivity of cloud layers is derived.     

Sensitivity of global warming to the pattern of tropical ocean warming

The current generations of climate models are in substantial disagreement as to the projected patterns of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Tropics over the next several decades. We show that the spatial patterns of tropical ocean temperature trends have a strong influence on global mean temperature and precipitation and on global mean radiative forcing. We identify the SST patterns with the greatest influence on the global mean climate and find very different, and often opposing, sensitivities to SST changes in the tropical Indian and West Pacific Oceans. Our work stresses the need to reduce climate model biases in these sensitive regions, as they not only affect the regional climates of the nearby densely populated continents, but also have a disproportionately large effect on the global climate.

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Sensitivity of tropical climate to low-level clouds in the NCEP climate forecast system

In this work, we examine the sensitivity of tropical mean climate and seasonal cycle to low clouds and cloud liquid water path (CLWP) by prescribing them in the NCEP climate forecast system (CFS). It is found that the change of low cloud cover alone has a minor influence on the amount of net shortwave radiation reaching the surface and on the warm biases in the southeastern Atlantic. In experiments where CLWP is prescribed using observations, the mean climate in the tropics is improved significantly, implying that shortwave radiation absorption by CLWP is mainly responsible for reducing the excessive surface net shortwave radiation over the southern oceans in the CFS. Corresponding to large CLWP values in the southeastern oceans, the model generates large low cloud amounts. That results in a reduction of net shortwave radiation at the ocean surface and the warm biases in the sea surface temperature in the southeastern oceans. Meanwhile, the cold tongue and associated surface wind stress in the eastern oceans become stronger and more realistic. As a consequence of the overall improvement of the tropical mean climate, the seasonal cycle in the tropical Atlantic is also improved. Based on the results from these sensitivity experiments, we propose a model bias correction approach, in which CLWP is prescribed only in the southeastern Atlantic by using observed annual mean climatology of CLWP. It is shown that the warm biases in the southeastern Atlantic are largely eliminated, and the seasonal cycle in the tropical Atlantic Ocean is significantly improved. Prescribing CLWP in the CFS is then an effective interim technique to reduce model biases and to improve the simulation of seasonal cycle in the tropics.     

Stratospheric radiative feedback limited by the tropospheric influence in global warming

Whether the stratospheric radiative feedback amplifies the global warming remains under debate. The stratospheric water vapor (SWV), one of the primary feedbacks in the stratosphere, is argued to be an important contributor to the global warming. On the other hand, the overall stratospheric feedback, which consists of both the SWV feedback and the stratospheric temperature (ST) feedback, does not amount to a significant value. The key to reconciling these seemingly contradictory arguments is to understand the ST change. Here, we develop a method to decompose the ST change and to quantify the decomposed feedbacks. We find that the SWV feedback, which consists of a 0.04 W m⁻² K⁻¹ direct impact on the top-of-the-atmosphere radiation and 0.11 W m⁻² K⁻¹ indirect impact via ST cooling, is offset by a negative ST feedback of − 0.13 W m⁻² K⁻¹ that is radiatively driven by the tropospheric warming. This compensation results in an insignificant overall stratospheric feedback.

     

一次飞机冷云增雨作业效果检验

最近60多年,全球范围内广泛开展了人工增雨作业,但人工增雨效果检验一直是个难题。传统上,利用雨量计和目标/对比区统计数据评估人工增雨效果,结果大多不确定。对一次人工增雨作业而言,从科学上给出令人信服的效果检验更是没有好的解决方案。2017年3月19日,陕西省实施业务飞机冷云增雨作业播撒含有750 g碘化银（AgI）的催化剂,播撒线长125 km。作业后卫星、雷达观测到一条与播云线对应的清晰的云迹线,地面雨滴谱仪观测到相应的雨强、雨滴数浓度、雨滴直径增大,表明播云使云体产生了增雨响应。针对这次增雨过程,从连片雷达回波中分离增雨作用造成的回波增强带（增雨影响回波）和确定了自然降水回波强度,建立增雨影响回波强度（Z）与地面雨强（I）的拟合关系（Z-I关系）,定量研究人工增雨的时、空演变。结果表明:（1）增雨影响时间约4 h,增雨影响回波区域（增雨影响区）面积为5448 km2。该区累计降雨总量和增雨总量分别为1.518×106 m3和8.04×105 m3,增雨影响区内增雨率达53%。（2）总降雨量、增雨量、自然降雨量随时间先增后减,总降雨量与增雨量的峰值同步,两者峰值都早于自然降雨峰值;催化后146 min （04时47分,世界时,下同）,每6 min增雨量达到最大,为4.9×104 m3;催化后174 min （05时15分）,增雨雷达回波面积达到最大（1711 km2）,面积峰值滞后增雨量峰值出现。（3）增雨影响区位于播撒线下游,呈条带状;区域内总降雨量空间分布为中间大边缘小,与增雨量空间分布一致。（4）此次增雨作业改变了降雨时、空分布,促进降雨形成,增加了地面降雨量。      

全球增暖和极端事件对全球温度场关联性的影响

用中国国家气象信息中心整编的1971—2006年中国693个地面基准站日降水资料、同期美国JTWC最佳路径资料和NCEP/NCAR再分析资料,对热带气旋(TC)远距离暴雨进行统计分析和诊断研究。结果表明:36a中有14.7%的TC产生远距离暴雨。TC远距离暴雨事件遍及中国大陆27个省(市、自治区),其中,环渤海地区和川陕交界处为中国TC远距离暴雨高发区。远距离暴雨集中发生在6—9月。34.6%的TC远距离暴雨具有影响范围广、降水强度大的特点。诊断分析表明,TC远距离暴雨能否产生的关键在于热带气旋东侧环流能否将水汽输送到中纬度槽前,如果有高气压或偏北气流对水汽输送的阻断,就不会形成远距离暴雨。     

Cloud albedo feedback and the super greenhouse effect in a global coupled GCM

Two competing cloud-radiative feedbacks identified in previous studies i.e., cloud albedo feedback and the super greenhouse effect, are examined in a sensitivity study with a global coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model. Cloud albedo feedback is strengthened in a sensitivity experiment by lowering the sea-surface temperature (SST) threshold in the specified cloud albedo feedback scheme. This simple parameterization requires coincident warm SSTs and deep convection for upper-level cloud albedos to increase. The enhanced cloud albedo feedback in the sensitivity experiment results in decreased maximum values of SST and cooler surface temperatures over most areas of the planet. There is also a cooling of the tropical troposphere with attendant global changes of atmospheric circulation reminiscent of those observed during La Niña or cold events in the Southern Oscillation. The strengthening of the cloud albedo feedback only occurs over warm tropical oceans (e.g., the western Pacific warm pool), where there is increased albedo, decreased absorbed solar radiation at the surface, stronger surface westerlies, enhanced westward currents, lower temperatures, and decreased precipitation and evaporation. However, the weakened convection over the tropical western Pacific Ocean alters the large-scale circulation in the tropics such that there is increased upper-level divergence over tropical land areas and the tropical Indian Ocean. This results in increased precipitation in those regions and intensified monsoonal regimes. The enhanced precipitation over tropical land areas produces increased clouds and albedo and wetter and cooler land surfaces. These additional contributions to decreased absorbed solar input at the surface combine with similar changes over the tropical oceans to produce the global cooling associated with the stronger cloud albedo feedback. Increased low-level moisture convergence and precipitation over the tropical Indian Ocean enhance slightly the super greenhouse effect there. But the stronger cloud albedo feedback is still the dominant effect, although cooling of SSTs in that region is less than in the tropical western Pacific Ocean. The sensitivity experiment demonstrates how a regional change of radiative forcing is quickly transmitted globally through a combination of radiative and dynamical processes in the coupled model. This study points to the uncertainties involved with the parameterization of cloud albedo and the major implications of such parameterizations concerning the maximum values of SST, global climate sensitivity, and climate change.Support is provided by the Office of Health and Environmental Research of the U.S. Department of Energy, as part of its Carbon Dioxide Research Program.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

Predicting the impacts of global warming on wildland fire

Simulations of impacts of a double-CO₂ climate with the Changed Climate Fire Modeling System in Northern California consistently projected increases in area burned and in the frequency of escaped fires compared with simulations of the present climate. However, the magnitude of those increases was strongly influenced by vegetation type, choice of atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) scenario, and choice of climatic forcing variables. The greatest projected increase in fire severity occurred in grasslands, using the Princeton Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory GCM, with wind speed, temperature, humidity and precipitation as driving variables.     

The fingerprint of global warming in the Tropical Pacific

正The impacts of global warming will be felt most strongly at regional scales.However,great uncertainties exist in climate change projections at these scales,limiting our ability to provide useful information for the planning and implementation of appropriate adaptation measures.Thus,there is an urgent need to reduce these uncertainties.     

Eddy parametrization and the oceanic response to idealized global warming

 A coarse-grid global ocean general circulation model (OGCM) is used to determine the role of sub-grid scale eddy parametrization schemes in the response to idealized changes in the surface heat flux, of the same order as expected under increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. Two schemes are employed. The first (H) incorporates standard horizontal mixing, whereas the second (G) combines both enhanced isopycnal mixing and eddy-induced transport. Uniform surface heating anomalies of +2 W m^-2 and −2 W m^-2 are applied for 50 years, and the results are compared with a control experiment in which no anomalous heating is imposed. A passive “heat” tracer is applied uniformly (at a rate of 2 W m^-2 for 50 years) in a separate experiment. The sea-surface temperature response to global surface heating is generally larger in G, especially in the northern subtropical gyres, along the southern coast of Australia and off the Antarctic coast. A pronounced interhemispheric asymmetry (primarily arising from an anomalous response south of 35 °S) is evident in both H and G. The surface trapping of passive tracers in the Southern Hemisphere is generally greater in G than it is in H, and is particularly pronounced along the prime meridian (0 °E). Dynamical changes (i.e., changes in horizontal and vertical currents, convection, and preferred mixing and eddy transport pathways) enhance surface warming in the tropics and subtropics in both G and H. They are dominated by an anomalous meridional overturning centred on the equator, which may also operate in greenhouse warming experiments using coupled atmosphere-ocean GCMs. Over the Southern Ocean the passive tracer experiments and associated ventilation rates suggest that surface warming will be greater in G than in H. In fact, the contrast between the dynamical responses evident in G and H in the actual heating experiments leads to a situation in which the reverse is often true. Overall, dynamical changes enhance the interhemispheric assymetry, more so in G than in H. Received: August 1996/Accepted: 20 March 1997     

六种HFCs的辐射强迫与全球增温潜能

采用最新分子吸收数据集HITRAN2004中6种氢氟碳化物（HFCs）的吸收截面数据,建立了它们的相关K-分布的辐射计算方案,研究了这些长寿命温室气体浓度变化引起的辐射强迫,比较了它们的全球增温潜能。结果表明,从1750年到2005年由于这些气体浓度变化引起的总的辐射强迫约为0、0066Wm^-2,未来100a的辐射强迫结果说明它们对未来全球变暖的贡献不容忽视。     

On the tropical origin of uncertainties in the global land precipitation response to global warming

Understanding the response of the global hydrological cycle to recent and future anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols is a major challenge for the climate modelling community. Recent climate scenarios produced for the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are analysed here to explore the geographical origin of, and the possible reasons for, uncertainties in the hydrological model response to global warming. Using the twentieth century simulations and the SRES-A2 scenarios from eight different coupled ocean–atmosphere models, it is shown that the main uncertainties originate from the tropics, where even the sign of the zonal mean precipitation change remains uncertain over land. Given the large interannual fluctuations of tropical precipitation, it is then suggested that the El Niño Southern Ocillation (ENSO) variability can be used as a surrogate of climate change to better constrain the model reponse. While the simulated sensitivity of global land precipitation to global mean surface temperature indeed shows a remarkable similarity between the interannual and climate change timescales respectively, the model ability to capture the ENSO-precipitation relationship is not a major constraint on the global hydrological projections. Only the model that exhibits the highest precipitation sensitivity clearly appears as an outlier. Besides deficiencies in the simulation of the ENSO-tropical rainfall teleconnections, the study indicates that uncertainties in the twenty-first century evolution of these teleconnections represent an important contribution to the model spread, thus emphasizing the need for improving the simulation of the tropical Pacific variability to provide more reliable scenarios of the global hydrological cycle. It also suggests that validating the mean present-day climate is not sufficient to assess the reliability of climate projections, and that interannual variability is another suitable and possibly more useful candidate for constraining the model response. Finally, it is shown that uncertainties in precipitation change are, like precipitation itself, very unevenly distributed over the globe, the most vulnerable countries sometimes being those where the anticipated precipitation changes are the most uncertain.     

Interpretation of the positive low-cloud feedback predicted by a climate model under global warming

The response of low-level clouds to climate change has been identified as a major contributor to the uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates among climate models. By analyzing the behaviour of low-level clouds in a hierarchy of models (coupled ocean-atmosphere model, atmospheric general circulation model, aqua-planet model, single-column model) using the same physical parameterizations, this study proposes an interpretation of the strong positive low-cloud feedback predicted by the IPSL-CM5A climate model under climate change. In a warmer climate, the model predicts an enhanced clear-sky radiative cooling, stronger surface turbulent fluxes, a deepening and a drying of the planetary boundary layer, and a decrease of tropical low-clouds in regimes of weak subsidence. We show that the decrease of low-level clouds critically depends on the change in the vertical advection of moist static energy from the free troposphere to the boundary-layer. This change is dominated by variations in the vertical gradient of moist static energy between the surface and the free troposphere just above the boundary-layer. In a warmer climate, the thermodynamical relationship of Clausius-Clapeyron increases this vertical gradient, and then the import by large-scale subsidence of low moist static energy and dry air into the boundary layer. This results in a decrease of the low-level cloudiness and in a weakening of the radiative cooling of the boundary layer by low-level clouds. The energetic framework proposed in this study might help to interpret inter-model differences in low-cloud feedbacks under climate change.     

The impact of global warming on the Southern Oscillation Index

The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI)??a measure of air pressure difference across the Pacific Ocean, from Tahiti in the south-east to Darwin in the west??is one of the world??s most important climatic indices. The SOI is used to track and predict changes in both the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation phenomenon, and the Walker Circulation (WC). During El Ni?o, for example, the WC weakens and the SOI tends to be negative. Climatic variations linked to changes in the WC have a profound influence on climate, ecosystems, agriculture, and societies in many parts of the world. Previous research has shown that (1) the WC and the SOI weakened in recent decades and that (2) the WC in climate models tends to weaken in response to elevated atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Here we examine changes in the SOI and air pressure across the Pacific in the observations and in numerous WCRP/CMIP3 climate model integrations for both the 20th and 21st centuries. The difference in mean-sea level air pressure (MSLP) between the eastern and western equatorial Pacific tends to weaken during the 21st century, consistent with previous research. Here we show that this primarily arises because of an increase in MSLP in the west Pacific and not a decline in the east. We also show, in stark contrast to expectations, that the SOI actually tends to increase during the 21st century, not decrease. Under global warming MSLP tends to increase at both Darwin and Tahiti, but tends to rise more at Tahiti than at Darwin. Tahiti lies in an extensive region where MSLP tends to rise in response to global warming. So while the SOI is an excellent indicator of interannual variability in both the equatorial MSLP gradient and the WC, it is a highly misleading indicator of long-term equatorial changes linked to global warming. Our results also indicate that the observed decline in the SOI in recent decades has been driven by natural, internally generated variability. The externally forced signal in the June?CDecember SOI during 2010 is estimated to be approximately 5% of the standard deviation of variability in the SOI during the 20th century. This figure is projected to increase to 40% by the end of the 21st century under the A2 SRES scenario. The 2010 global warming signal is already a major contributor to interdecadal variability in the SOI, equal to 45% of the standard deviation of 30-year running averages of the SOI. This figure is projected to increase to nearly 340% by the end of the 21st century. Implications that these discoveries have for understanding recent climatic change and for seasonal prediction are discussed.     

Dynamical greenhouse-plus feedback and polar warming amplification. Part II: meridional and vertical asymmetries of the global warming

This paper examines several prominent thermodynamic and dynamic factors responsible for the meridional and vertical warming asymmetries using a moist coupled atmosphere–surface radiative transportive four-box climate model. A coupled atmosphere–surface feedback analysis is formulated to isolate the direct response to an anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing from individual local feedbacks (water vapor, evaporation, surface sensible heat flux, and ice-albedo), and from the non-local dynamical feedback. Both the direct response and response to water vapor feedback are stronger in low latitudes. The joint effect of the ice-albedo and dynamical greenhouse-plus feedbacks acts to amplify the high latitude surface warming whereas both the evaporation and dynamical greenhouse-minus feedbacks cause a reduction of the surface warming in low latitudes. The enhancement (reduction) of local feedbacks in high (low) latitudes in response to the non-local dynamic feedback further strengthens the polar amplification of the surface warming. Both the direct response and response to water vapor feedback lead to an increase of lapse rate in both low and high latitudes. The stronger total dynamic heating in the mean state in high latitudes is responsible for a larger increase of lapse rate in high latitudes in the direct response and response to water vapor feedback. The local evaporation and surface sensible heat flux feedbacks reduce the lapse rate both in low and high latitudes through cooling the surface and warming the atmosphere. The much stronger evaporation feedback leads to a final warming in low latitudes that is stronger in the atmosphere than the surface.