Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2
The Arctic climate is changing rapidly, warming at about twice the rate of the planet. Global climate models (GCMs) are invaluable tools both for understanding the drivers of these changes and predicting future Arctic climate evolution. While GCMs are continually improving, there remain difficulties...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7757258 2023-05-15T14:34:19+02:00 Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 McIlhattan, Elin A. Kay, Jennifer E. L'Ecuyer, Tristan S. 2020-11-20 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757258/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33381360 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032521 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757258/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33381360 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032521 ©2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY J Geophys Res Atmos Research Articles Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032521 2021-01-03T01:41:03Z The Arctic climate is changing rapidly, warming at about twice the rate of the planet. Global climate models (GCMs) are invaluable tools both for understanding the drivers of these changes and predicting future Arctic climate evolution. While GCMs are continually improving, there remain difficulties in representing cloud processes which occur on scales smaller than GCM resolution. Since clouds influence the Arctic energy and water cycles, their accurate representation in models is critical for robust future projections. In this work, we examine the representation of Arctic clouds and precipitation in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) with the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), comparing the newly released version (CESM2 with CAM6) with its predecessor (CESM1 with CAM5). To isolate changes in the Arctic mean state, we compare preindustrial control runs. Arctic cloud ice has decreased slightly, while cloud water has increased dramatically in CESM2. Annual mean liquid‐containing cloud (LCC) frequency has increased from 19% in CESM1 to 51% in CESM2. Since LCCs strongly modulate downwelling radiation at the surface, their increase has led to an increase in mean downwelling longwave (+22 W m(−2)) and corresponding decrease in downwelling shortwave (−23 W m(−2)) radiation. The mean Arctic surface temperature increased from 257 K in CESM1 to 260 K in CESM2, with the largest seasonal difference in winter (+6 K). Annual average snowfall has decreased slightly (−1 mm month(−1)), while rainfall has increased (+5 mm month(−1)). Text Arctic PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 125 22 |
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Research Articles McIlhattan, Elin A. Kay, Jennifer E. L'Ecuyer, Tristan S. Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 |
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Research Articles |
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The Arctic climate is changing rapidly, warming at about twice the rate of the planet. Global climate models (GCMs) are invaluable tools both for understanding the drivers of these changes and predicting future Arctic climate evolution. While GCMs are continually improving, there remain difficulties in representing cloud processes which occur on scales smaller than GCM resolution. Since clouds influence the Arctic energy and water cycles, their accurate representation in models is critical for robust future projections. In this work, we examine the representation of Arctic clouds and precipitation in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) with the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), comparing the newly released version (CESM2 with CAM6) with its predecessor (CESM1 with CAM5). To isolate changes in the Arctic mean state, we compare preindustrial control runs. Arctic cloud ice has decreased slightly, while cloud water has increased dramatically in CESM2. Annual mean liquid‐containing cloud (LCC) frequency has increased from 19% in CESM1 to 51% in CESM2. Since LCCs strongly modulate downwelling radiation at the surface, their increase has led to an increase in mean downwelling longwave (+22 W m(−2)) and corresponding decrease in downwelling shortwave (−23 W m(−2)) radiation. The mean Arctic surface temperature increased from 257 K in CESM1 to 260 K in CESM2, with the largest seasonal difference in winter (+6 K). Annual average snowfall has decreased slightly (−1 mm month(−1)), while rainfall has increased (+5 mm month(−1)). |
format |
Text |
author |
McIlhattan, Elin A. Kay, Jennifer E. L'Ecuyer, Tristan S. |
author_facet |
McIlhattan, Elin A. Kay, Jennifer E. L'Ecuyer, Tristan S. |
author_sort |
McIlhattan, Elin A. |
title |
Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 |
title_short |
Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 |
title_full |
Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 |
title_fullStr |
Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 |
title_full_unstemmed |
Arctic Clouds and Precipitation in the Community Earth System Model Version 2 |
title_sort |
arctic clouds and precipitation in the community earth system model version 2 |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757258/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33381360 https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032521 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
J Geophys Res Atmos |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7757258/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33381360 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032521 |
op_rights |
©2020. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032521 |
container_title |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres |
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125 |
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22 |
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1766307378852003840 |