The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates
Clouds are one of the most influential components of Earth’s climate system. Specifically, the midlatitude clouds play a vital role in shaping Earth’s albedo. This study investigates the connection between baroclinic activity, which dominates the midlatitude climate, and cloud-albedo and how it rela...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9945990 2023-05-15T13:10:40+02:00 The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates Hadas, Or Datseris, George Blanco, Joaquin Bony, Sandrine Caballero, Rodrigo Stevens, Bjorn Kaspi, Yohai 2023-01-27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9945990/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36706219 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208778120 en eng National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9945990/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36706219 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208778120 Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) . CC-BY-NC-ND Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences Text 2023 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208778120 2023-02-26T01:57:37Z Clouds are one of the most influential components of Earth’s climate system. Specifically, the midlatitude clouds play a vital role in shaping Earth’s albedo. This study investigates the connection between baroclinic activity, which dominates the midlatitude climate, and cloud-albedo and how it relates to Earth’s existing hemispheric albedo symmetry. We show that baroclinic activity and cloud-albedo are highly correlated. By using Lagrangian tracking of cyclones and anticyclones and analyzing their individual cloud properties at different vertical levels, we explain why their cloud-albedo increases monotonically with intensity. We find that while for anticyclones, the relation between strength and cloudiness is mostly linear, for cyclones, in which clouds are more prevalent, the relation saturates with strength. Using the cloud-albedo strength relationships and the climatology of baroclinic activity, we demonstrate that the observed hemispheric difference in cloud-albedo is well explained by the difference in the population of cyclones and anticyclones, which counter-balances the difference in clear-sky albedo. Finally, we discuss the robustness of the hemispheric albedo symmetry in the future climate. Seemingly, the symmetry should break, as the northern hemisphere’s storm track response differs from that of the southern hemisphere due to Arctic amplification. However, we show that the saturation of the cloud response to storm intensity implies that the increase in the skewness of the southern hemisphere storm distribution toward strong storms will decrease future cloud-albedo in the southern hemisphere. This complex response explains how albedo symmetry might persist even with the predicted asymmetric hemispheric change in baroclinicity under climate change. Text albedo Arctic Climate change PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 5 |
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Physical Sciences Hadas, Or Datseris, George Blanco, Joaquin Bony, Sandrine Caballero, Rodrigo Stevens, Bjorn Kaspi, Yohai The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates |
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Physical Sciences |
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Clouds are one of the most influential components of Earth’s climate system. Specifically, the midlatitude clouds play a vital role in shaping Earth’s albedo. This study investigates the connection between baroclinic activity, which dominates the midlatitude climate, and cloud-albedo and how it relates to Earth’s existing hemispheric albedo symmetry. We show that baroclinic activity and cloud-albedo are highly correlated. By using Lagrangian tracking of cyclones and anticyclones and analyzing their individual cloud properties at different vertical levels, we explain why their cloud-albedo increases monotonically with intensity. We find that while for anticyclones, the relation between strength and cloudiness is mostly linear, for cyclones, in which clouds are more prevalent, the relation saturates with strength. Using the cloud-albedo strength relationships and the climatology of baroclinic activity, we demonstrate that the observed hemispheric difference in cloud-albedo is well explained by the difference in the population of cyclones and anticyclones, which counter-balances the difference in clear-sky albedo. Finally, we discuss the robustness of the hemispheric albedo symmetry in the future climate. Seemingly, the symmetry should break, as the northern hemisphere’s storm track response differs from that of the southern hemisphere due to Arctic amplification. However, we show that the saturation of the cloud response to storm intensity implies that the increase in the skewness of the southern hemisphere storm distribution toward strong storms will decrease future cloud-albedo in the southern hemisphere. This complex response explains how albedo symmetry might persist even with the predicted asymmetric hemispheric change in baroclinicity under climate change. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hadas, Or Datseris, George Blanco, Joaquin Bony, Sandrine Caballero, Rodrigo Stevens, Bjorn Kaspi, Yohai |
author_facet |
Hadas, Or Datseris, George Blanco, Joaquin Bony, Sandrine Caballero, Rodrigo Stevens, Bjorn Kaspi, Yohai |
author_sort |
Hadas, Or |
title |
The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates |
title_short |
The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates |
title_full |
The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates |
title_fullStr |
The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates |
title_full_unstemmed |
The role of baroclinic activity in controlling Earth’s albedo in the present and future climates |
title_sort |
role of baroclinic activity in controlling earth’s albedo in the present and future climates |
publisher |
National Academy of Sciences |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9945990/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36706219 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208778120 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
albedo Arctic Climate change |
genre_facet |
albedo Arctic Climate change |
op_source |
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9945990/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36706219 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208778120 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208778120 |
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
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120 |
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5 |
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1766238169069518848 |