Weak hydrological sensitivity to temperature change over land, independent of climate forcing

Samset, B. H.; Myhre, Gunnar; Forster, Piers M.; Hodnebrog, Øivind; Andrews, Timothy; Boucher, Oliviér; Faluvegi, G.; Fläschner, Dagmar; Kasoar, Matthew; Kharin, Viatcheslav; Kirkevåg, Alf; Lamarque, Jean‐François; Olivié, Dirk; Richardson, T.; Shindell, D. T.; Takemura, Toshihiko; Voulgarakis, Apostolos

doi:10.1038/s41612-017-0005-5

Cited by 46 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…This indicates that different apparent hydrological sensitivities are mainly a result of different fast precipitation adjustments in the prescribed‐SST simulations. Our results indicate that the slow response of hydrological cycle is largely independent of the forcing types at global scale, which is also found by previous studies that compare a variety of forging agents including CO 2 , CH 4 , black carbon, and solar reduction and CCT geoengineering schemes (e.g., Andrews et al, ; Bala et al, ; Kristjánsson et al, ; Kvalevåg et al, ; Samset et al, ).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Our study demonstrates that fast adjustment of the hydrological cycle is highly dependent on the forcing agents, but the slow response of the hydrological cycle is largely independent of forcing agents. Similar findings were obtained by previous studies that compare the hydrological cycle response to different climate forcing agents (Andrews et al, ; Bala et al, ; Kristjánsson et al, ; Kvalevåg et al, ; Samset et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

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Comparison of the Fast and Slow Climate Response to Three Radiation Management Geoengineering Schemes

et al. 2018

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Geoengineering has been proposed as a backup approach to rapidly cool the Earth and avoid damages associated with anthropogenic climate change. In this study, we use the NCAR Community Earth System Model to conduct a series of slab-ocean and prescribed sea surface temperature simulations to investigate the climate response to three proposed radiation management geoengineering schemes: stratospheric aerosol increase (SAI), marine cloud brightening (MCB), and cirrus cloud thinning (CCT). Our simulations show that different amounts of radiative forcing are needed for these three schemes to compensate global mean warming induced by a doubling of atmospheric CO 2 . With radiative forcing defined in terms of top-of-atmosphere energy imbalances in prescribed sea surface temperature simulations with land temperature adjustments, radiative forcing efficacy for SAI is about 15% smaller than that of CO 2 , and the efficacy for MCB and CCT is about 10% larger than that of CO 2 . In our simulations, different forcing efficacies are associated with different feedback processes for these forcing agents. Also, these geoengineering schemes produce different land-ocean temperature change contrasts. The apparent hydrological sensitivity, that is, change in equilibrium global mean precipitation per degree of equilibrium temperature change, differs substantially between CO 2 , SAI, MCB, and CCT forcings, which is mainly a result of different precipitation responses during fast adjustment. After removing the component of fast adjustment, the northward movement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in response to these forcing agents is tightly related with changes in the interhemispheric energy exchange and hemispheric temperature gradient.Plain Language Summary To counteract the CO 2 -induced global warming effect, a number of geoengineering methods have been proposed. One proposed method (sulfate aerosol injection) is to inject sulfate aerosols or its precursors (SO 2 ) into the stratosphere to deflect more sunlight back to space. Another method (marine cloud brightening) is to seed low-level marine stratocumulus clouds to reflect more sunlight. A third method, the intentional reduction of the coverage and optical thickness of high-level cirrus cloud (cirrus cloud thinning), could potentially reduce global warming by modifying the longwave radiative effect of cirrus clouds. In this study, we compare the climate response to these three geoengineering schemes that are designed to offset global mean surface warming caused by an abrupt doubling of atmospheric CO 2 . Our simulations show that to offset the same amount of CO 2 -induced global mean warming, different amounts of radiative forcing are needed, implying that the efficacy of climate forcing is different for different geoengineering schemes. Also, for the same amount of cooling achieved, cirrus cloud thinning produces a much smaller reduction in precipitation than does stratospheric aerosol injection or marine cloud brightening. Due to the different natures of imposed forcing, t...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Comparison of the Fast and Slow Climate Response to Three Radiation Management Geoengineering Schemes

et al. 2018

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“…Additionally, Level 2 absorption products such as AAOD require solar zenith angle > 50°and AOD > 0.4 at 440 nm. As AOD > 0.4 is uncommon ( [114], their Fig. 1; the global average AOD at 440 nm is not far above 0.14), this requirement means that Level 2 AAOD information is limited, and skewed towards conditions of high aerosol loading.…”

Section: Remote Sensing By Ground Stationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerosol Absorption: Progress Towards Global and Regional Constraints

Samset

Stjern

Andrews

et al. 2018

Curr Clim Change Rep

139

148

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Purpose of Review Some aerosols absorb solar radiation, altering cloud properties, atmospheric stability and circulation dynamics, and the water cycle. Here we review recent progress towards global and regional constraints on aerosol absorption from observations and modeling, considering physical properties and combined approaches crucial for understanding the total (natural and anthropogenic) influences of aerosols on the climate. Recent Findings We emphasize developments in black carbon absorption alteration due to coating and ageing, brown carbon characterization, dust composition, absorbing aerosol above cloud, source modeling and size distributions, and validation of high-resolution modeling against a range of observations. Summary Both observations and modeling of total aerosol absorption, absorbing aerosol optical depths and single scattering albedo, as well as the vertical distribution of atmospheric absorption, still suffer from uncertainties and unknowns significant for climate applications. We offer a roadmap of developments needed to bring the field substantially forward.

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“…Bjerknes (1966) and Bjerknes (1969) present a mechanism for the midlatitude response to a tropical Pacific anomaly, with a heating anomaly leading to a strengthening of the Aleutian low. Extension of the response into the Atlantic basin typically arises via tropically generated Rossby waves (Hoskins and Karoly, 1981;Ting et al, 1996;Held et al, 2002;Scaife et al, 2017). Stratospheric pathways for teleconnections between the tropical Pacific and the North Atlantic have also been proposed (Bell et al, 2009;Allen and Sherwood, 2011;Domeisen et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms for a remote response to Asian anthropogenic aerosol in boreal winter

et al. 2019

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Asian emissions of anthropogenic aerosols and their precursors have increased rapidly since 1980, with half of the increase since the pre-industrial era occurring in this period. Transient experiments with the HadGEM3-GC2 coupled model were designed to isolate the impact of Asian anthropogenic aerosols on global climate in boreal winter. It is found that this increase has resulted in local circulation changes, which in turn have driven decreases in precipitation over China, alongside an intensification of the offshore monsoon flow. No large temperature changes are seen over China. Over India, the opposite response is found, with decreasing temperatures and increasing precipitation. The dominant feature of the local circulation changes is an increase in low-level convergence, ascent, and precipitation over the Maritime Continent, which forms part of a tropical Pacificwide La Niña-like response.HadGEM3-GC2 also simulates pronounced far-field responses. A decreased meridional temperature gradient in the North Pacific leads to a positive Pacific-North American circulation pattern, with associated temperature anomalies over the North Pacific and North America. Anomalous northeasterly flow over northeast Europe drives advection of cold air into central and western Europe, causing cooling in this region. An anomalous anticyclonic circulation over the North Atlantic causes drying over western Europe. Using a steadystate primitive equation model, LUMA, we demonstrate that these far-field midlatitude responses arise primarily as a re-sult of Rossby waves generated over China, rather than in the equatorial Pacific.Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

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Weak hydrological sensitivity to temperature change over land, independent of climate forcing

Cited by 46 publications

References 34 publications

Comparison of the Fast and Slow Climate Response to Three Radiation Management Geoengineering Schemes

Comparison of the Fast and Slow Climate Response to Three Radiation Management Geoengineering Schemes

Aerosol Absorption: Progress Towards Global and Regional Constraints

Mechanisms for a remote response to Asian anthropogenic aerosol in boreal winter

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