Cloud Radiative Forcing of the Arctic Surface: The Influence of Cloud Properties, Surface Albedo, and Solar Zenith Angle

Shupe, Matthew D.; Intrieri, J. M.

doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<0616:crfota>2.0.co;2

Cited by 608 publications

(760 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In the NyÅlesund radiosonde data, ice supersaturation occurs mostly in a broad band between 6 and 9 km in winter, shifting towards higher altitudes in summer (Treffeisen et al 2007). In terms of cloud radiative forcing, lowlevel liquid and mixed-phase clouds are the most important contributors to the Arctic surface radiation balance, while ice clouds have only a small radiative impact (Shupe and Intrieri 2004). Here, rather than discussing relative humidity in the context of cloud microphysics, we aim to emphasize on the importance of water vapour as a greenhouse gas.…”

Section: Humiditymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, specific humidity inversions have implications for cloud growth and persistence (Solomon et al 2011;Sedlar et al 2012). Though the Arctic atmosphere is particularly dry, water vapour contributes most of all gases to LW emission (Curry et al 1995) and creates supersaturations that maintain clouds causing additional LW forcing (Shupe and Intrieri 2004). Changes in water vapour content are thus expected to have a strong impact on the Arctic climate system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Arctic warming, moisture increase and circulation changes observed in the Ny-Ålesund homogenized radiosonde record

Maturilli

Kayser

2016

Theor Appl Climatol

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Radiosonde measurements obtained at the Arctic site Ny-Ålesund (78.9°N, 11.9°E), Svalbard, from 1993 to 2014 have been homogenized accounting for instrumentation discontinuities by correcting known errors in the manufacturer provided profiles. The resulting homogenized radiosonde record is provided as supplementary material at http://doi. pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.845373. From the homogenized data record, the first Ny-Ålesund upper-air climatology of wind, temperature and humidity is presented, forming the background for the analysis of changes during the 22-year period. Particularly during the winter season, a strong increase in atmospheric temperature and humidity is observed, with a significant warming of the free troposphere in January and February up to 3 K per decade. This winter warming is even more pronounced in the boundary layer below 1 km, presumably amplified by mesoscale processes including e.g. orographic effects or the boundary layer capping inversion. Though the largest contribution to the increasing atmospheric water vapour column in winter originates from the lowermost 2 km, no increase in the contribution by specific humidity inversions is detected. Instead, we find an increase in the humidity content of the large-scale background humidity profiles. At the same time, the tropospheric flow in winter is found to occur less frequent from northerly directions and to the same amount more frequent from the South. We conclude that changes in the atmospheric circulation lead to an enhanced advection of warm and moist air from lower latitudes to the Svalbard region in the winter season, causing the warming and moistening of the atmospheric column above Ny-Ålesund, and link the observations to changes in the Arctic Oscillation.

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Section: Humiditymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Arctic warming, moisture increase and circulation changes observed in the Ny-Ålesund homogenized radiosonde record

Maturilli

Kayser

2016

Theor Appl Climatol

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“…A major finding of these experiments was the observed frequency and persistence of supercooled liquid water and mixed-phase stratiform clouds throughout the year Pinto et al, 2001;Intrieri et al, 2002;Shupe and Intrieri, 2004). In contrast to midlatitude cloud systems, there is little temperature dependence for the amount of liquid versus ice in Arctic mixed-phase clouds McFarquhar and Cober, 2004;Turner, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The frequent occurrence of mixed-phase clouds has important implications for the cloud radiative forcing at the surface, since mixed-phase clouds tend to be optically thicker than ice-only clouds (Sun and Shine, 1994;Shupe and Intrieri, 2004;Turner, 2005;Zuidema et al, 2005). The presence of mixed-phase as compared to ice-only clouds may also significantly impact the structure of the boundary layer and large-scale dynamics through the influence of cloud-top radiative cooling (Morrison and Pinto, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intercomparison of model simulations of mixed‐phase clouds observed during the ARM Mixed‐Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment. I: single‐layer cloud

Klein

McCoy

Morrison

et al. 2009

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

Self Cite

264

341

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ABSTRACT:Results are presented from an intercomparison of single-column and cloud-resolving model simulations of a cold-air outbreak mixed-phase stratocumulus cloud observed during the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) programme's Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment. The observed cloud occurred in a well-mixed boundary layer with a cloud-top temperature of −15 • C. The average liquid water path of around 160 g m −2 was about two-thirds of the adiabatic value and far greater than the average mass of ice which when integrated from the surface to cloud top was around 15 g m −2 .Simulations of 17 single-column models (SCMs) and 9 cloud-resolving models (CRMs) are compared. While the simulated ice water path is generally consistent with observed values, the median SCM and CRM liquid water path is a factor-of-three smaller than observed. Results from a sensitivity study in which models removed ice microphysics suggest that in many models the interaction between liquid and ice-phase microphysics is responsible for the large model underestimate of liquid water path.Despite this underestimate, the simulated liquid and ice water paths of several models are consistent with observed values. Furthermore, models with more sophisticated microphysics simulate liquid and ice water paths that are in better agreement with the observed values, although considerable scatter exists. Although no single factor guarantees a good simulation, these results emphasize the need for improvement in the model representation of mixed-phase microphysics.

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“…Additionally, errors could result from a lack of atmospheric processes in the models i.e. an underestimation of low cloud cover is a cause of significant errors in radiative fluxes (Kauker 2003), as the SST response to shortwave radiative forcing is thermally direct (Cheng et al 2013) and lowlevel stratiform liquid and mixed-phase clouds are found to be the most important contributors to the Arctic surface radiation balance (Shupe and Intrieri 2004). Another explanation could be the sea ice export and variation, so the changes of albedo and fresh water input of the area, during the 50 years of study (Halvorsen et al 2015).…”

Section: Rmse Mean Bias and Variancementioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of CMIP5 models over the northern North Atlantic in the context of forthcoming paleoclimatic reconstructions

2017

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We evaluated 11 coupled climate model simulations regarding the spatial structures of sea-surface temperature (SST) variability in the North Atlantic, during the second half of the twentieth century. The subset of models includes CCSM4, CSIRO, CanESM and MPI-ESM, participating in the fifth phase of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project. The evaluation was performed to determine the potential of these models to be used at a later stage as test beds for the evaluation of climate field reconstruction methods that will use the extremely long-lived bivalve mollusk Arctica islandica, an outstanding paleoclimate archive for the boreal and temperate North Atlantic (Schöne, Glob Planet Change 111:199–225, 2013). Several validation metrics such as the mean bias, variance, spatial and temporal co-variability and trends of the North Atlantic summer SSTs showed that some of the models can be used to test paleoclimatic reconstructions. However, most models showed shortcomings in simulating the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Concerning the co-variability of summer SSTs between proxy sites and the whole North Atlantic SST field, we found that these proxy locations contain a SST signal that might represent a (basin-wide) signal for the north-eastern North Atlantic basin

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Cloud Radiative Forcing of the Arctic Surface: The Influence of Cloud Properties, Surface Albedo, and Solar Zenith Angle

Cited by 608 publications

References 27 publications

Arctic warming, moisture increase and circulation changes observed in the Ny-Ålesund homogenized radiosonde record

Arctic warming, moisture increase and circulation changes observed in the Ny-Ålesund homogenized radiosonde record

Intercomparison of model simulations of mixed‐phase clouds observed during the ARM Mixed‐Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment. I: single‐layer cloud

Evaluation of CMIP5 models over the northern North Atlantic in the context of forthcoming paleoclimatic reconstructions

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