Climate models disagree on the sign of total radiative feedback in the Arctic

• Published in: Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography
• Main Authors: Karoline Block, Florian A. Schneider, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Marc Salzmann, Johannes Quaas
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholm University Press 2020
• Subjects: arctic feedbacks; cmip5 models; arctic amplification; feedback uncertainties; Oceanography; GC1-1581; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Arctic; albedo; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1080/16000870.2019.1696139; https://doaj.org/article/8b09215b1d8d40a6bc04f5c09b9d36e2

Climate feedbacks have been found to strongly impact the observed amplified Arctic warming. However, Arctic amplification is modeled with a wide spread which partly arises from intermodel differences of the various feedbacks. To explain the spread in modeled Arctic warming, feedback uncertainties and their origins are investigated in 13 climate models in an experiment with abruptly quadrupled CO2. While intermodel differences in the cloud feedback, being strongest in the Tropics, have been found to determine the spread of global mean effective climate sensitivity, we find that in the Arctic the cloud feedback is not responsible for the spread of Arctic warming as its contribution is too small. Instead, the spread of Arctic warming is explained by differing estimates of surface albedo and Planck feedbacks which show the largest intermodel differences. Our results indicate that these uncertainties not only arise from different degrees of simulated Arctic warming but also are partly related to the large differences in initial sea ice cover and surface temperatures which contribute to the increased spread in estimated warming compared to lower latitudes. Further investigations of feedback dependencies to the base state are needed to constrain the impact of initial uncertainties and to obtain robust results. The most significant distinction between models is the sign of the total feedback parameter. While all models investigated here simulate a negative global mean total feedback, only half of them also show negative Arctic feedbacks which implies that Arctic local feedbacks alone suffice to stably adjust Arctic surface temperatures in response to a radiative perturbation. The other half exhibits positive total Arctic feedbacks indicating local runaway systems which need to be balanced by decreased meridional heat transports. Whether or not a model features such a behaviour depends upon the strength of the simulated positive surface albedo versus the negative Planck feedback.