Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming?
Cloud phase improvements in a state-of-the-art climate model produce a large 1.5K increase in equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS, the surface warming in response to instantaneously doubled CO2) via extratropical shortwave cloud feedbacks. Here we show that the same model improvements produce only...
Published in: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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Language: | English |
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076339 |
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ftncar:oai:drupal-site.org:articles_21304 2023-09-05T13:21:30+02:00 Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? Frey, W. R. (author) Maroon, E. A. (author) Pendergrass, Angeline G. (author) Kay, J. E. (author) 2017-12-21 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076339 en eng Geophysical Research Letters--Geophys. Res. Lett.--00948276 articles:21304 ark:/85065/d7bc425m doi:10.1002/2017GL076339 Copyright 2017 American Geophysical Union. article Text 2017 ftncar https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076339 2023-08-14T18:48:26Z Cloud phase improvements in a state-of-the-art climate model produce a large 1.5K increase in equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS, the surface warming in response to instantaneously doubled CO2) via extratropical shortwave cloud feedbacks. Here we show that the same model improvements produce only a small surface warming increase in a realistic 21st century emissions scenario. The small 21st century warming increase is attributed to extratropical ocean heat uptake. Southern Ocean mean-state circulation takes up heat while a slowdown in North Atlantic circulation acts as a feedback to slow surface warming. Persistent heat uptake by extratropical oceans implies that extratropical cloud biases may not be as important to 21st century warming as biases in other regions. Observational constraints on cloud phase and shortwave radiation that produce a large ECS increase do not imply large changes in 21st century warming. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Southern Ocean OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Southern Ocean Geophysical Research Letters 44 24 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenSky (NCAR/UCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) |
op_collection_id |
ftncar |
language |
English |
description |
Cloud phase improvements in a state-of-the-art climate model produce a large 1.5K increase in equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS, the surface warming in response to instantaneously doubled CO2) via extratropical shortwave cloud feedbacks. Here we show that the same model improvements produce only a small surface warming increase in a realistic 21st century emissions scenario. The small 21st century warming increase is attributed to extratropical ocean heat uptake. Southern Ocean mean-state circulation takes up heat while a slowdown in North Atlantic circulation acts as a feedback to slow surface warming. Persistent heat uptake by extratropical oceans implies that extratropical cloud biases may not be as important to 21st century warming as biases in other regions. Observational constraints on cloud phase and shortwave radiation that produce a large ECS increase do not imply large changes in 21st century warming. |
author2 |
Frey, W. R. (author) Maroon, E. A. (author) Pendergrass, Angeline G. (author) Kay, J. E. (author) |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
title |
Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? |
spellingShingle |
Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? |
title_short |
Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? |
title_full |
Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? |
title_fullStr |
Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? |
title_full_unstemmed |
Do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? |
title_sort |
do southern ocean cloud feedbacks matter for 21st century warming? |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076339 |
geographic |
Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Southern Ocean |
genre |
North Atlantic Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
Geophysical Research Letters--Geophys. Res. Lett.--00948276 articles:21304 ark:/85065/d7bc425m doi:10.1002/2017GL076339 |
op_rights |
Copyright 2017 American Geophysical Union. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076339 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
container_volume |
44 |
container_issue |
24 |
_version_ |
1776202104468144128 |