Comments on 'Current GCMs' Unrealistic Negative Feedback in the Arctic'

• Published in: Journal of Climate
• Main Authors: Pithan, Felix, Mauritsen, Thorsten
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Meteorological Society 2013
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/39341/

In contrast to prior studies showing a positive lapse-rate feedback associated with the Arctic inversion, Boé et al. reported that strong present-day Arctic temperature inversions are associated with stronger negative longwave feedbacks and thus reduced Arctic amplification in the model ensemble from phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3). A permutation test reveals that the relation between longwave feedbacks and inversion strength is an artifact of statistical self-correlation and that shortwave feedbacks have a stronger correlation with intermodel spread. The present comment concludes that the conventional understanding of a positive lapse-rate feedback associated with the Arctic inversion is consistent with the CMIP3 model ensemble.