Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3"
This project has focused on the simulation of Arctic clouds in CCSM3 and how the modeled cloud amount (and climate) can be improved substantially by altering the parameterized low cloud fraction. The new formula, dubbed 'freeezedry', alleviates the bias of excessive low clouds during polar...
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ftosti:oai:osti.gov:940966 2023-07-30T04:00:39+02:00 Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3" Stephen J. Vavrus 2010-08-05 application/pdf http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/940966 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/940966 https://doi.org/10.2172/940966 unknown http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/940966 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/940966 https://doi.org/10.2172/940966 doi:10.2172/940966 58 GEOSCIENCES 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES ARCTIC OCEAN CLIMATE MODELS CLIMATES CLOUDS EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES FORECASTING GREENHOUSE GASES POLAR REGIONS SEAS SENSITIVITY SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER SYNTHESIS 2010 ftosti https://doi.org/10.2172/940966 2023-07-11T08:46:35Z This project has focused on the simulation of Arctic clouds in CCSM3 and how the modeled cloud amount (and climate) can be improved substantially by altering the parameterized low cloud fraction. The new formula, dubbed 'freeezedry', alleviates the bias of excessive low clouds during polar winter by reducing the cloud amount under very dry conditions. During winter, freezedry decreases the low cloud amount over the coldest regions in high latitudes by over 50% locally and more than 30% averaged across the Arctic (Fig. 1). The cloud reduction causes an Arctic-wide drop of 15 W m{sup -2} in surface cloud radiative forcing (CRF) during winter and about a 50% decrease in mean annual Arctic CRF. Consequently, wintertime surface temperatures fall by up to 4 K on land and 2-8 K over the Arctic Ocean, thus significantly reducing the model's pronounced warm bias (Fig. 1). While improving the polar climate simulation in CCSM3, freezedry has virtually no influence outside of very cold regions (Fig. 2) or during summer (Fig. 3), which are space and time domains that were not targeted. Furthermore, the simplicity of this parameterization allows it to be readily incorporated into other GCMs, many of which also suffer from excessive wintertime polar cloudiness, based on the results from the CMIP3 archive (Vavrus et al., 2008). Freezedry also affects CCSM3's sensitivity to greenhouse forcing. In a transient-CO{sub 2} experiment, the model version with freezedry warms up to 20% less in the North Polar and South Polar regions (1.5 K and 0.5 K smaller warming, respectively) (Fig. 4). Paradoxically, the muted high-latitude response occurs despite a much larger increase in cloud amount with freezedry during non-summer months (when clouds warm the surface), apparently because of the colder modern reference climate. These results of the freezedry parameterization have recently been published (Vavrus and D. Waliser, 2008: An improved parameterization for simulating Arctic cloud amount in the CCSM3 climate model. J. Climate, 21, ... Other/Unknown Material Arctic Arctic Ocean SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) Arctic Arctic Ocean |
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Open Polar |
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SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) |
op_collection_id |
ftosti |
language |
unknown |
topic |
58 GEOSCIENCES 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES ARCTIC OCEAN CLIMATE MODELS CLIMATES CLOUDS EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES FORECASTING GREENHOUSE GASES POLAR REGIONS SEAS SENSITIVITY SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER SYNTHESIS |
spellingShingle |
58 GEOSCIENCES 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES ARCTIC OCEAN CLIMATE MODELS CLIMATES CLOUDS EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES FORECASTING GREENHOUSE GASES POLAR REGIONS SEAS SENSITIVITY SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER SYNTHESIS Stephen J. Vavrus Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3" |
topic_facet |
58 GEOSCIENCES 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES ARCTIC OCEAN CLIMATE MODELS CLIMATES CLOUDS EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES FORECASTING GREENHOUSE GASES POLAR REGIONS SEAS SENSITIVITY SUPERCONDUCTING SUPER COLLIDER SYNTHESIS |
description |
This project has focused on the simulation of Arctic clouds in CCSM3 and how the modeled cloud amount (and climate) can be improved substantially by altering the parameterized low cloud fraction. The new formula, dubbed 'freeezedry', alleviates the bias of excessive low clouds during polar winter by reducing the cloud amount under very dry conditions. During winter, freezedry decreases the low cloud amount over the coldest regions in high latitudes by over 50% locally and more than 30% averaged across the Arctic (Fig. 1). The cloud reduction causes an Arctic-wide drop of 15 W m{sup -2} in surface cloud radiative forcing (CRF) during winter and about a 50% decrease in mean annual Arctic CRF. Consequently, wintertime surface temperatures fall by up to 4 K on land and 2-8 K over the Arctic Ocean, thus significantly reducing the model's pronounced warm bias (Fig. 1). While improving the polar climate simulation in CCSM3, freezedry has virtually no influence outside of very cold regions (Fig. 2) or during summer (Fig. 3), which are space and time domains that were not targeted. Furthermore, the simplicity of this parameterization allows it to be readily incorporated into other GCMs, many of which also suffer from excessive wintertime polar cloudiness, based on the results from the CMIP3 archive (Vavrus et al., 2008). Freezedry also affects CCSM3's sensitivity to greenhouse forcing. In a transient-CO{sub 2} experiment, the model version with freezedry warms up to 20% less in the North Polar and South Polar regions (1.5 K and 0.5 K smaller warming, respectively) (Fig. 4). Paradoxically, the muted high-latitude response occurs despite a much larger increase in cloud amount with freezedry during non-summer months (when clouds warm the surface), apparently because of the colder modern reference climate. These results of the freezedry parameterization have recently been published (Vavrus and D. Waliser, 2008: An improved parameterization for simulating Arctic cloud amount in the CCSM3 climate model. J. Climate, 21, ... |
author |
Stephen J. Vavrus |
author_facet |
Stephen J. Vavrus |
author_sort |
Stephen J. Vavrus |
title |
Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3" |
title_short |
Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3" |
title_full |
Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3" |
title_fullStr |
Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3" |
title_full_unstemmed |
Final Technical Report for Project "Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3" |
title_sort |
final technical report for project "improving the simulation of arctic clouds in ccsm3" |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/940966 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/940966 https://doi.org/10.2172/940966 |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
op_relation |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/940966 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/940966 https://doi.org/10.2172/940966 doi:10.2172/940966 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.2172/940966 |
_version_ |
1772811174180552704 |