Understanding the climate response to different vertical patterns of radiative forcing
Author(s)
Dai, An‐Zhuo
Gregory, Jonathan
Ceppi, Paulo
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The dependence of climate response on the vertical structure of radiative forcing is studied using a set of idealized experiments, with horizontally uniform and vertically confined forcings. We find for a given effective forcing magnitude, higher-altitude forcing causes a smaller global warming, owing to more negative cloud feedback. We present novel evidence relating this altitude dependence to sea-surface temperature patterns and tropospheric static stability. The imposed instantaneous forcings are horizontally uniform, but higher-altitude forcings more effectively suppress convection in the tropical warm pool, producing a more positive effective (adjusted) surface forcing in that region. This gives rise, during the subsequent climate change, to greater warming contrast between the warm pool and rest of the globe, and hence to increase in low cloud amount. Our results show that to achieve accurate climate projections under anthropogenic forcings, it is important to correctly represent the vertical structures of the applied radiative forcing.
Date Issued
2026-01-16
Date Acceptance
2025-12-08
Citation
Geophysical Research Letters, 2026, 53 (1)
ISSN
0094-8276
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Journal / Book Title
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
53
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2025. The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e2025GL119138
Date Publish Online
2025-12-26