Observed linkages between the northern annular mode/North Atlantic Oscillation, cloud incidence, and cloud radiative forcing

Liu, Ying; Thompson, David W. J.; Huang, Yi; Zhang, Minghong

doi:10.1002/2013gl059113

Cited by 41 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In lower midlatitudes there is significant SW warming with Hadley shifts and smaller, but still measurable, SW warming with jet shifts. The high cloud and LW CRE changes presented here are consistent with the results of Li et al [], who use CloudSat/CALIPSO high cloud retrievals and Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System radiative fluxes for a 5 year period and correlate them with NAM shifts. However, they find that the change in SW CRE is a factor 2–3 smaller than the change in LW CRE everywhere, while our analysis shows this to be true only at the higher latitudes of the basin.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 93%

Midlatitude cloud shifts, their primary link to the Hadley cell, and their diverse radiative effects

Tselioudis

Lipat

Konsta

et al. 2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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We investigate the interannual relationship among clouds, their radiative effects, and two key indices of the atmospheric circulation: the latitudinal positions of the Hadley cell edge and the midlatitude jet. From reanalysis data and satellite observations, we find a clear and consistent relationship between the width of the Hadley cell and the high cloud field, statistically significant in nearly all regions and seasons. In contrast, shifts of the midlatitude jet correlate significantly with high cloud shifts only in the North Atlantic region during the winter season. While in that region and season poleward high cloud shifts are associated with shortwave radiative warming, over the Southern Oceans during all seasons they are associated with shortwave radiative cooling. Finally, a trend analysis reveals that poleward high cloud shifts observed over the 1983–2009 period are more likely related to Hadley cell expansion, rather than poleward shifts of the midlatitude jets.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 93%

Midlatitude cloud shifts, their primary link to the Hadley cell, and their diverse radiative effects

Tselioudis

Lipat

Konsta

et al. 2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…Variability of the Arctic atmospheric circulation on monthly and seasonal time scales is characterized by preferred patterns of variability termed low-frequency modes: the Arctic Oscillation (AO)/Northern Annular Mode (NAM) [179], North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Arctic Dipole (AD) [180], and Pacific-North American Pattern (PNA) [181]. These modes influence sea ice drift [182,183], cloud fraction [184,185], surface temperature, cyclone activity [176], and surface downwelling radiative fluxes [186,187] influencing SH and LH fluxes. Because of the organization of the Arctic atmospheric circulation into distinct synoptic and low-frequency features, the surface conditions can be organized by regimes [15,188,189].…”

Section: Atmospheric Circulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Increasing Importance of Air-Sea Exchanges in a Thawing Arctic: A Review

et al. 2018

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Forty years ago, climate scientists predicted the Arctic to be one of Earth's most sensitive climate regions and thus extremely vulnerable to increased CO 2 . The rapid and unprecedented changes observed in the Arctic confirm this prediction. Especially significant, observed sea ice loss is altering the exchange of mass, energy, and momentum between the Arctic Ocean and atmosphere.As an important component of air-sea exchange, surface turbulent fluxes are controlled by vertical gradients of temperature and humidity between the surface and atmosphere, wind speed, and surface roughness, indicating that they respond to other forcing mechanisms such as atmospheric advection, ocean mixing, and radiative flux changes. The exchange of energy between the atmosphere and surface via surface turbulent fluxes in turn feeds back on the Arctic surface energy budget, sea ice, clouds, boundary layer temperature and humidity, and atmospheric and oceanic circulations. Understanding and attributing variability and trends in surface turbulent fluxes is important because they influence the magnitude of Arctic climate change, sea ice cover variability, and the atmospheric circulation response to increased CO 2 . This paper reviews current knowledge of Arctic Ocean surface turbulent fluxes and their effects on climate. We conclude that Arctic Ocean surface turbulent fluxes are having an increasingly consequential influence on Arctic climate variability in response to strong regional trends in the air-surface temperature contrast related to the changing character of the Arctic sea ice cover. Arctic Ocean surface turbulent energy exchanges are not smooth and steady but rather irregular and episodic, and consideration of the episodic nature of surface turbulent fluxes is essential for improving Arctic climate projections.

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“…Chiacchio and Wild [] point out a connection between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and observed all‐sky SSR trends in central Europe. A link between NAO and clouds is equally found by Li et al [], while Schwartz et al [] identify a link between clouds off the western U.S. coast and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and Brown et al [] stress the role of cloud feedback for the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Folini and Wild [] highlight the relevance of transient sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for modeled cloud cover and all‐sky SSR changes in China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends of surface solar radiation in unforced CMIP5 simulations

et al. 2017

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We consider decadal scale trends of annual mean all‐sky surface solar radiation (SSR) that occur solely because of internal variability of the climate system. We give statistical estimates of their magnitude and probability of occurrence. The estimates are based on 43 preindustrial control (piControl) experiments of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5). Trends are found to depend strongly on geographical region and on whether they are quantified in absolute units or relative to the long‐term mean SSR. We find it to be sufficient to provide one map for absolute and one for relative trends, as approximate analytical relations are shown to hold between trends of different length and likelihood and the standard deviation of the underlying SSR time series. We estimate that a positive trend over 30 years and with 25% chance of occurrence (75th percentile of all possible trends) has a magnitude between 0.15 and 1.7 W/m2/decade or 0.11 and 1.4% of long‐term mean SSR per decade, depending on geographical location. Comparison with present‐day observations and intermodel spread suggests an average uncertainty of these estimates of about 30%. Intermodel spread suggests that regional uncertainties can be up to about 3 times larger or smaller. We give examples of how these results may be used to obtain statistical estimates of how (un)likely it is that observed SSR trends or part thereof are due to internal variability alone.

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Observed linkages between the northern annular mode/North Atlantic Oscillation, cloud incidence, and cloud radiative forcing

Cited by 41 publications

References 37 publications

Midlatitude cloud shifts, their primary link to the Hadley cell, and their diverse radiative effects

Midlatitude cloud shifts, their primary link to the Hadley cell, and their diverse radiative effects

On the Increasing Importance of Air-Sea Exchanges in a Thawing Arctic: A Review

Trends of surface solar radiation in unforced CMIP5 simulations

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