Anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and strong water vapor feedback increase temperature in Europe

Philipona, Rolf; Dürr, Bruno; Ohmura, Atsumu; Ruckstuhl, Christian

doi:10.1029/2005gl023624

Cited by 97 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…It depends on atmospheric conditions, such as cloud cover (e.g., Stephens & Webster, 1981), water vapor (Compo & Sardeshmukh, 2009), or greenhouse gas concentrations (Arrhenius, 1896) and includes thus both short‐term weather and long‐term climate effects (Philipona et al, 2005; Pithan & Mauritsen, 2014). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Contributions of Incoming Radiation and Land Surface Conditions to Maximum Near‐Surface Air Temperature Variability and Trend

Schwingshackl

Hirschi

Seneviratne

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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The evolution of near‐surface air temperature is influenced by various dynamical, radiative, and surface‐atmosphere exchange processes whose contributions are still not completely quantified. Applying stepwise multiple linear regression to Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) model simulations and focusing on radiation (diagnosed by incoming shortwave and incoming longwave radiation) and land surface conditions (diagnosed by soil moisture and albedo) about 79% of the interannual variability and 99% of the multidecadal trend of monthly mean daily maximum temperature over land can be explained. The linear model captures well the temperature variability in middle‐to‐high latitudes and in regions close to the equator, whereas its explanatory potential is limited in deserts. While radiation is an essential explanatory variable over almost all of the analyzed domain, land surface conditions show a pronounced relation to temperature in some confined regions. These findings highlight that considering local‐to‐regional processes is crucial for correctly assessing interannual temperature variability and future temperature trends.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Contributions of Incoming Radiation and Land Surface Conditions to Maximum Near‐Surface Air Temperature Variability and Trend

Schwingshackl

Hirschi

Seneviratne

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…When CF was high and Arctic surfaces were covered by snow and ice, particularly during the onset of sea-ice melting (May-June), the cloud-greenhouse (LW) effect overwhelmed the cloud-albedo (SW) effect due to the fact that cloud albedo is nearly the same as the surface albedo, producing a positive cloud radiative effect on surface radiation budget. The increased PWV has little effect on downwelling SW flux, but significantly increases downwelling LW flux (Dong et al 2006;Philipona et al 2005), further increasing the surface temperature and enhancing the sea-ice retreat. Later on, more sea-ice was melted, additional SW (and LW) radiation was absorbed by open seas to increase surface temperature, and more water vapor was evaporated to form more clouds, which strengthened further the positive cloud-radiation-PWV feedback.…”

Section: Cloud-radiation-pwv Feedbackmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical mechanisms for the formation of extreme arctic sea-ice extent in the summers of 2007 and 1996

Dong

Zib

et al. 2013

Clim Dyn

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Along with significant changes in the Arctic climate system, the largest year-to-year variation in sea-ice extent (SIE) has occurred in the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas (defined here as the area of focus, AOF), among which the two highly contrasting extreme events were observed in the summers of 2007 and 1996 during the period 1979-2012. Although most efforts have been devoted to understanding the 2007 low, a contrasting high September SIE in 1996 might share some related but opposing forcing mechanisms. In this study, we investigate the mechanisms for the formation of these two extremes and quantitatively estimate the cloud-radiation-water vapor feedback to the sea-ice-concentration (SIC) variation utilizing satellite-observed sea-ice products and the NASA MERRA reanalysis. The low SIE in 2007 was associated with a persistent anticyclone over the Beaufort Sea coupled with low pressure over Eurasia, which induced anomalous southerly winds. Ample warm and moist air from the North Pacific was transported to the AOF and resulted in positive anomalies of cloud fraction (CF), precipitable water vapor (PWV), surface LWnet (down-up), total surface energy and temperature. In contrast, the high SIE event in 1996 was associated with a persistent low pressure over the central Arctic coupled with high pressure along the Eastern Arctic coasts, which generated anomalous northerly winds and resulted in negative anomalies of above mentioned atmospheric parameters. In addition to their immediate impacts on sea ice reduction, CF, PWV and radiation can interplay to lead to a positive feedback loop among them, which plays a critical role in reinforcing sea ice to a great low value in 2007. During the summer of 2007, the minimum SIC is 31 % below the climatic mean, while the maximum CF, LWnet and PWV can be up to 15 %, 20 Wm -2 , and 4 kg m -3 above. The high anti-correlations (-0.79, -0.61, -0.61) between the SIC and CF, PWV, and LWnet indicate that CF, PWV and LW radiation are indeed having significant impacts on the SIC variation. A new record low occurred in the summer of 2012 was mainly triggered by a super storm over the central Arctic Ocean in early August that caused substantial mechanical ice deformation on top of the long-term thinning of an Arctic ice pack that had become more dominated by seasonal ice.Keywords Trigger and cause of Arctic sea ice retreat Á Cloud-radiation-water vapor feedback to the sea-ice-concentration variation Á Extreme Arctic seaice extent formation mechanisms Á Triggered by atmospheric forcings Á Enhanced clouds-radiation-PWV feedback

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“…Accurate measurements of water vapor are therefore most important to constrain climate models. Measured trends in integrated water vapor (IWV) are important because they may be indicators of anthropogenic climate change (Philipona et al, 2004(Philipona et al, , 2005. However, evidence for long-term changes in IWV is limited by the availability and quality of measurements (Trenberth et al, 2005(Trenberth et al, , 2007.…”

Section: R Sussmann Et Al: Trends In Column-integrated Water Vapor mentioning

confidence: 99%

Technical Note: Harmonized retrieval of column-integrated atmospheric water vapor from the FTIR network – first examples for long-term records and station trends

et al. 2009

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Abstract. We present a method for harmonized retrieval of integrated water vapor (IWV) from existing, long-term, measurement records at the ground-based mid-infrared solar FTIR spectrometry stations of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). Correlation of IWV from FTIR with radiosondes shows an ideal slope of 1.00(3). This optimum matching is achieved via tuning one FTIR retrieval parameter, i.e., the strength of a Tikhonov regularization constraining the derivative (with respect to height) of retrieved water profiles given in per cent difference relative to an a priori profile. All other FTIR-sonde correlation parameters (intercept=0.02(12) mm, bias=0.02(5) mm, standard deviation of coincident IWV differences (stdv)=0.27 mm, R=0.99) are comparable to or better than results for all other ground-based IWV sounding techniques given in the literature. An FTIR-FTIR side-byside intercomparison reveals a strong exponential increase in stdv as a function of increasing temporal mismatch starting at t≈1 min. This is due to atmospheric water vapor variability. Based on this result we derive an upper limit for the precision of the FTIR IWV retrieval for the smallest t (=3.75 min) still giving a statistically sufficient sample (32 coincidences), i.e., precision(IWV FTIR )<0.05 mm (or 2.2% of the mean IWV). The bias of the IWV retrievals from the two different FTIR instruments is nearly negligible (0.02(1) mm). The optimized FTIR IWV retrieval is set up in the standard NDACC algorithm SFIT 2 without changes Correspondence to: R. Sussmann (ralf.sussmann@kit.edu) to the code. A concept for harmonized transfer of the retrieval between different stations deals with all relevant control parameters; it includes correction for differing spectral point spacings (via regularization strength), and final quality selection of the retrievals (excluding the highest residuals (measurement minus model), 5% of the total).As [1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008], whereas for the Jungfraujoch no significant trend is found. This confirms recent findings that strong variations of IWV trends do occur above land on the local to regional scale (≈250 km) in spite of homogeneous surface temperature trends. This paper provides a basis for future exploitation of more than a dozen existing, multi-decadal FTIR measurement records around the globe for climate studies.

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Anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and strong water vapor feedback increase temperature in Europe

Cited by 97 publications

References 17 publications

Global Contributions of Incoming Radiation and Land Surface Conditions to Maximum Near‐Surface Air Temperature Variability and Trend

Global Contributions of Incoming Radiation and Land Surface Conditions to Maximum Near‐Surface Air Temperature Variability and Trend

Critical mechanisms for the formation of extreme arctic sea-ice extent in the summers of 2007 and 1996

Technical Note: Harmonized retrieval of column-integrated atmospheric water vapor from the FTIR network – first examples for long-term records and station trends

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