A transitioning Arctic surface energy budget: the impacts of solar zenith angle, surface albedo and cloud radiative forcing

Sedlar, Joseph; Tjernström, Michael; Mauritsen, Thorsten; Shupe, Matthew D.; Brooks, Ian M.; Persson, P. Ola G.; Birch, Cathryn E.; Leck, Caroline; Sirevaag, Anders; Nicolaus, Marcel

doi:10.1007/s00382-010-0937-5

Cited by 186 publications

(301 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…1 bear some resemblance to real Arctic mixed-phase clouds. Supercooled liquid overlies ice, ice and snow fall gradually, updrafts and entrainment through a moist inversion supply new cloud water, and multiple cloud layers form in areas of both stable and moist adiabatic stratification (e.g., Morrison et al 2012;Sedlar et al 2011;Verlinde et al 2013). The most serious deficiencies of the simulations with the Lin-Purdue scheme are that new clouds are too commonly mixtures of ice and liquid because of the implementation of supersaturation adjustment (see the appendix) and that the scheme does not maintain enough supercooled liquid at low temperatures.…”

Section: A Time Evolution Of Temperature and Cloudsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suppression of Arctic Air Formation with Climate Warming: Investigation with a Two-Dimensional Cloud-Resolving Model

Cronin

Tziperman

2017

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

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Arctic climate change in winter is tightly linked to changes in the strength of surface temperature inversions, which occur frequently in the present climate as Arctic air masses form during polar night. Recent work proposed that, in a warmer climate, increasing low-cloud optical thickness of maritime air advected over highlatitude landmasses during polar night could suppress the formation of Arctic air masses, amplifying winter warming over continents and sea ice. But this mechanism was based on single-column simulations that could not assess the role of fractional cloud cover change. This paper presents two-dimensional cloud-resolving model simulations that support the single-column model results: low-cloud optical thickness and duration increase strongly with initial air temperature, slowing the surface cooling rate as the climate is warmed. The cloud-resolving model cools less at the surface than the single-column model, and the sensitivity of its cooling to warmer initial temperatures is also higher, because it produces cloudier atmospheres with stronger lowertropospheric mixing and distributes cloud-top cooling over a deeper atmospheric layer with larger heat capacity. Resolving larger-scale cloud turbulence has the greatest impact on the microphysics schemes that best represent general observed features of mixed-phase clouds, increasing their sensitivity to climate warming. These findings support the hypothesis that increasing insulation of the high-latitude land surface by low clouds in a warmer world could act as a strong positive feedback in future climate change and suggest studying Arctic air formation in a three-dimensional climate model.

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Section: A Time Evolution Of Temperature and Cloudsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Suppression of Arctic Air Formation with Climate Warming: Investigation with a Two-Dimensional Cloud-Resolving Model

Cronin

Tziperman

2017

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

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“…Unlike the rest of the globe, MPS clouds tend to be the most common in the lower Arctic troposphere, except during winter and early spring when ice-only clouds are somewhat more frequent. The MPS clouds have a profound impact on the surface energy balance, since liquid water generates significantly more long-wave radiation to the surface than do ice clouds Sedlar et al, 2011;Wesslen et al, 2014), and hence on the surface melt and freeze (Fig. 4).…”

Section: Cloud Physicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite this instability, liquid-topped clouds with ice and/or drizzle precipitating from this layer are the norm within the lower Arctic troposphere from spring through autumn (Tjernström et al, 2004;de Boer et al, 2009;Shupe, 2011;Sedlar et al, 2011). Shupe et al (2011) observed mean duration times of the order of 10 h for these cloud systems, but they may also occur as quasi-stationary systems persisting for days Sedlar et al, 2011;Shupe, 2011).…”

Section: Cloud Physicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Curry, 1986) and droplet effective radii often range between 4 to 15 µm. Typical LWC in MPS peaks between 0.1 and 0.2 g m −3 (McFarquhar et al, 2007) and together with relatively thin liquid layers Shupe 2011), cloud liquid water path (LWP) is often below 100 g m −2 (de Boer et al, 2009;Sedlar et al, 2011;Shupe et al, 2011). In-cloud ice water contents (IWC) are generally largest between cloud mid-level and base, decreasing upwards towards cloud top where they are initially formed .…”

Section: Cloud Physicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This decoupling appears to be most common during the cold, dark months but also occurs during the transition and summer seasons (Kahl, 1990;Tjernström et al, 2004Tjernström et al, , 2012Sedlar et al, 2011Sedlar et al, , 2012Solomon et al, 2011;Shupe et al, 2013). Thus, the surface-based moisture source for Arctic MPS is often missing (Fig.…”

Section: Cloud Physicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Advances in understanding and parameterization of small-scale physical processes in the marine Arctic climate system: a review

et al. 2014

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Abstract. The Arctic climate system includes numerous highly interactive small-scale physical processes in the atmosphere, sea ice, and ocean. During and since the International Polar Year 2007-2009, significant advances have been made in understanding these processes. Here, these recent advances are reviewed, synthesized, and discussed. In atmospheric physics, the primary advances have been in cloud physics, radiative transfer, mesoscale cyclones, coastal, and fjordic processes as well as in boundary layer processes and surface fluxes. In sea ice and its snow cover, advances have been made in understanding of the surface albedo and its relationships with snow properties, the internal structure of sea ice, the heat and salt transfer in ice, the formation of superimposed ice and snow ice, and the small-scale dynamics of sea ice. For the ocean, significant advances have been related to exchange processes at the ice-ocean interface, diapycnal mixing, double-diffusive convection, tidal currents and diurnal resonance. Despite this recent progress, some of these small-scale physical processes are still not sufficiently understood: these include wave-turbulence interactions in the atmosphere and ocean, the exchange of heat and salt at the ice-ocean interface, and the mechanical weakening of sea ice. Many other processes are reasonably well understood as stand-alone processes but the challenge is to understand their interactions with and impacts and feedbacks on other processes. Uncertainty in the parameterization of small-scale processes continues to be among the greatest challenges facing climate modelling, particularly in high latitudes. Further improvements in parameterization require new year-round field campaigns on the Arctic sea ice, closely combined with satellite remote sensing studies and numerical model experiments.

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Surface energy budget of landfast sea ice during the transitions from winter to snowmelt and melt pond onset: The importance of net longwave radiation and cyclone forcings

et al. 2014

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Relatively few sea ice energy balance studies have successfully captured the transition season of warming, snowmelt, and melt pond formation. In this paper, we report a surface energy budget for landfast sea ice that captures this important period. The study was conducted in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from 10 May to 20 June 2010. Over the first 20 days of the study, we found that short periods (1-3 days) of increased net radiation associated with low longwave loss provided most of the energy required to warm the snowpack from winter conditions. An extended period of low longwave loss (5 days) combined with the seasonal increase in incoming shortwave radiation then triggered snowmelt onset. Melt progressed with a rapid reduction in albedo and attendant increases in shortwave energy absorption, resulting in melt pond formation 8 days later. The key role of longwave radiation in initiating melt onset supports past findings, and confirms the importance of clouds and water vapor associated with synoptic weather systems. However, we also observed a period of strong turbulent energy exchange associated with the passage of a cyclone. The cyclone event occurred shortly after melt pond formation, but it delivered enough energy to significantly hasten melt onset had it occurred earlier in the season. Changes in the frequency, duration, and timing of synoptic-scale weather events that deliver clouds and/or strong turbulent heat fluxes may be important in explaining observed changes in sea ice melt onset timing.

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A transitioning Arctic surface energy budget: the impacts of solar zenith angle, surface albedo and cloud radiative forcing

Cited by 186 publications

References 53 publications

Suppression of Arctic Air Formation with Climate Warming: Investigation with a Two-Dimensional Cloud-Resolving Model

Suppression of Arctic Air Formation with Climate Warming: Investigation with a Two-Dimensional Cloud-Resolving Model

Advances in understanding and parameterization of small-scale physical processes in the marine Arctic climate system: a review

Surface energy budget of landfast sea ice during the transitions from winter to snowmelt and melt pond onset: The importance of net longwave radiation and cyclone forcings

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