The western North Pacific Subtropical High (WNPSH) is a key circulation system controlling the summer monsoon and typhoon activities over the western Pacific, but future projections of its changes ...remain hugely uncertain. Here we find two leading modes that account for nearly 80% intermodel spread in its future projection under a high emission scenario. They are linked to a cold-tongue-like bias in the central-eastern tropical Pacific and a warm bias beneath the marine stratocumulus, respectively. Observational constraints using sea surface temperature patterns reduce the uncertainties by 45% and indicate a robust intensification of the WNPSH due to suppressed warming in the western Pacific and enhanced land-sea thermal contrast, leading to 28% more rainfall projected in East China and 36% less rainfall in Southeast Asia than suggested by the multi-model mean. The intensification of the WNPSH implies more future monsoon rainfall and heatwaves but less typhoon landfalls over East Asia.
In recent years, a substantial reduction of the sea ice in the Arctic has been observed. At the same time, the near-surface air in this region is warming at a rate almost twice as large as the global ...average--this phenomenon is known as the Arctic amplification. The role of the ice-albedo feedback for the Arctic amplification is still a matter of debate. Here the effect of the surface-albedo feedback (SAF) was studied using a coupled climate model CCSM3 from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Experiments, where the SAF was suppressed by locking the surface albedo in the entire coupled model system, were conducted. The results reveal polar temperature amplification when this model, with suppressed albedo, is forced by a doubling of the atmospheric CO₂ content. Comparisons with variable albedo experiments show that SAF amplifies the surface-temperature response in the Arctic area by about 33%, whereas the corresponding value for the global-mean surface temperature is about 15%. Even though SAF is an important process underlying excessive warming at high latitudes, the Arctic amplification is only 15% larger in the variable than in the locked-albedo experiments. It is found that an increase of water vapour and total cloud cover lead to a greenhouse effect, which is larger in the Arctic than at lower latitudes. This is expected to explain a part of the Arctic surface-air-temperature amplification.
Low clouds play a key role in the Earth-atmosphere energy balance and influence agricultural production and solar-power generation. Smoke aloft has been found to enhance marine stratocumulus through ...aerosol-cloud interactions, but its role in regions with strong human activities and complex monsoon circulation remains unclear. Here we show that biomass burning aerosols aloft strongly increase the low cloud coverage over both land and ocean in subtropical southeastern Asia. The degree of this enhancement and its spatial extent are comparable to that in the Southeast Atlantic, even though the total biomass burning emissions in Southeast Asia are only one-fifth of those in Southern Africa. We find that a synergetic effect of aerosol-cloud-boundary layer interaction with the monsoon is the main reason for the strong semi-direct effect and enhanced low cloud formation in southeastern Asia.
Precipitation has been hypothesized to play a key role in the determination of cloud fraction (CF). The relationships between CF and rain rate (R) in marine boundary layer clouds were studied based ...on long‐term satellite retrievals. We find that both CF and R increase with cloud geometric width (CGW) and thickness (CGT). Increased CGW causes increased R even without cloud deepening, but increasing CGW beyond 15 km leads to a slight decrease in R. Coincident change in CF and R with increased CGW causes a spurious positive CF‐R relationship. When fixing CGT and CGW, CF generally decreases monotonically with increasing R, and the dependence generally weakens with warmer sea surface temperature and thinner, larger clouds. This finding supports well the hypothesis that aerosols could increase cloudiness by suppressing precipitation. This study also emphasizes the importance of cloud morphology in marine boundary layer cloud studies connected to precipitation processes.
Plain Language Summary
Changes in the cloud fraction (CF) of marine low‐level clouds have a considerable impact on the radiation budget because they reflect solar radiation into space and greatly cool the planet. Past studies have shown that precipitation plays an important role in the transition between different CF regimes, but the relationship between CF and precipitation remains controversial. Here we combined cloud properties and precipitation measurements from A‐train satellites to separate precipitation effects on CF from co‐varying factors. Our results show that both CF and rain rate (R) have a positive correlation with cloud geometric width (CGW) and thickness (CGT). R increases with CGW up to an optimum of 15 km for a fixed CGT, which may be because of less mixing of cloud water. However, as CGW grows above a critical size near 15 km, the cloud changes from convective to stratiform with less updraft and consequently less R. When CGT and CGW are both constrained, CF generally reduces monotonically as R increases. These findings point to the need to account for cloud morphology in cloud processes.
Key Points
Both Cloud fraction and rain rate increase with cloud geometric width and thickness
For a given cloud geometrical depth, rain rate increases with cloud geometric width up to an optimum near 15 km
Cloud fraction generally decreases monotonically with increasing rain rate for fixed cloud horizontal and vertical sizes
In this study, the anthropogenic aerosol impact on the summer monsoon clouds and precipitation in East Asia is investigated using the NCAR Community Atmospheric Model version 5 (CAM5), a ...state-of-the-art climate model considering aerosol direct, semi-direct and indirect effects. The effects of all anthropogenic aerosols, and anthropogenic black carbon (BC), sulfate, and primary organic matter (POM) are decomposed from different sensitivity simulations. Anthropogenic sulfate and POM reduce the solar flux reaching the surface directly by scattering the solar radiation, and indirectly by increasing the cloud droplet number concentration and cloud liquid water path over East China. The surface air temperature over land is reduced, and the precipitation in North China is suppressed. Unlike anthropogenic sulfate and POM, anthropogenic BC does not have a significant effect on the air temperature at the surface, because of the reduction of the cloud liquid water path and the weakening of shortwave cloud forcing by its semi-direct effect. The anthropogenic BC strengthens the southwesterly wind over South China and leads to stronger deep convection at the 25°N–30°N latitudinal band. The effect of all anthropogenic aerosols on air temperature, clouds, and precipitation is not a linear summation of effects from individual anthropogenic sulfate, BC and POM. Overall all anthropogenic aerosols suppress the precipitation in North China and enhance the precipitation in South China and adjacent ocean regions.
► We investigate aerosol effects on summer monsoon clouds and precipitation in East Asia. ► Anthropogenic sulfate and POM suppress precipitation in North China. ► Anthropogenic BC induced precipitation change is not statistically significant. ► The effect of all anthropogenic aerosols more resembles that from anthropogenic sulfate and POM.
A large number of processes are involved in the chain from emissions of aerosol precursor gases and primary particles to impacts on cloud radiative forcing. Those processes are manifest in a number ...of relationships that can be expressed as factors dlnX/dlnY driving aerosol effects on cloud radiative forcing. These factors include the relationships between cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentration and emissions, droplet number and CCN concentration, cloud fraction and droplet number, cloud optical depth and droplet number, and cloud radiative forcing and cloud optical depth. The relationship between cloud optical depth and droplet number can be further decomposed into the sum of two terms involving the relationship of droplet effective radius and cloud liquid water path with droplet number. These relationships can be constrained using observations of recent spatial and temporal variability of these quantities. However, we are most interested in the radiative forcing since the preindustrial era. Because few relevant measurements are available from that era, relationships from recent variability have been assumed to be applicable to the preindustrial to present-day change. Our analysis of Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models (AeroCom) model simulations suggests that estimates of relationships from recent variability are poor constraints on relationships from anthropogenic change for some terms, with even the sign of some relationships differing in many regions. Proxies connecting recent spatial/temporal variability to anthropogenic change, or sustained measurements in regions where emissions have changed, are needed to constrain estimates of anthropogenic aerosol impacts on cloud radiative forcing.
Satellite-based estimates of the aerosol indirect effect (AIE) are consistently smaller than the estimates from global aerosol models, and, partly as a result of these differences, the assessment of ...this climate forcing includes large uncertainties. Satellite estimates typically use the present-day (PD) relationship between observed cloud drop number concentrations (Nc) and aerosol optical depths (AODs) to determine the preindustrial (PI) values of Nc. These values are then used to determine the PD and PI cloud albedos and, thus, the effect of anthropogenic aerosols on top of the atmosphere radiative fluxes. Here, we use a model with realistic aerosol and cloud processes to show that empirical relationships for ln(Nc) versus ln(AOD) derived from PD results do not represent the atmospheric perturbation caused by the addition of anthropogenic aerosols to the preindustrial atmosphere. As a result, the model estimates based on satellite methods of the AIE are between a factor of 3 to more than a factor of 6 smaller than model estimates based on actual PD and PI values for Nc. Using ln(Nc) versus ln(AI) (Aerosol Index, or the optical depth times angstrom exponent) to estimate preindustrial values for Nc provides estimates for Nc and forcing that are closer to the values predicted by the model. Nevertheless, the AIE using ln(Nc) versus ln(AI) may be substantially incorrect on a regional basis and may underestimate or overestimate the global average forcing by 25 to 35%.
Aerosols emitted from wildfires could significantly affect global climate through perturbing global radiation balance. In this study, the Community Earth System Model with prescribed daily fire ...aerosol emissions is used to investigate fire aerosols’ impacts on global climate with emphasis on the role of climate feedbacks. The total global fire aerosol radiative effect (RE) is estimated to be −0.78 ± 0.29 W m−2, which is mostly from shortwave RE due to aerosol–cloud interactions (REaci; −0.70 ± 0.20 W m−2). The associated global annual-mean surface air temperature (SAT) change ΔT is −0.64 ± 0.16 K with the largest reduction in the Arctic regions where the shortwave REaci is strong. Associated with the cooling, the Arctic sea ice is increased, which acts to reamplify the Arctic cooling through a positive ice-albedo feedback. The fast response (irrelevant to ΔT) tends to decrease surface latent heat flux into atmosphere in the tropics to balance strong atmospheric fire black carbon absorption, which reduces the precipitation in the tropical land regions (southern Africa and South America). The climate feedback processes (associated with ΔT) lead to a significant surface latent heat flux reduction over global ocean areas, which could explain most (~80%) of the global precipitation reduction. The precipitation significantly decreases in deep tropical regions (5°N) but increases in the Southern Hemisphere tropical ocean, which is associated with the southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone and the weakening of Southern Hemisphere Hadley cell. Such changes could partly compensate the interhemispheric temperature asymmetry induced by boreal forest fire aerosol indirect effects, through intensifying the cross-equator atmospheric heat transport.
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