Separating radiative forcing by aerosol–cloud interactions and fast cloud adjustments in the ECHAM-HAMMOZ aerosol–climate model using the method of partial radiative perturbations
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Using the method of offline radiative transfer modelling within the partial radiative perturbations (PRP) approach, the effective radiative forcing (ERF) by aerosol–cloud interactions (ACI) in the ECHAM-HAMMOZ aerosol climate model is decomposed into a radiative forcing by anthropogenic cloud droplet number change and adjustments of the liquid water path and cloud fraction. The simulated radiative forcing and liquid water path adjustment are of approximately equal magnitude at −0.52 W m−2 and −0.53 W m−2, respectively, while the cloud fraction adjustment is somewhat weaker at −0.31 W m−2 (constituting 38 %, 39 %, and 23 % of the total ERFaci, respectively); geographically, all three ERF components in the simulation peak over China, the subtropical eastern ocean boundaries, the northern Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Europe, and eastern North America (in order of prominence). Spatial correlations indicate that the temporal-mean liquid water path adjustment is proportional to the temporal-mean radiative forcing, while the relationship between cloud fraction adjustment and radiative forcing is less direct. While the estimate of warm-cloud ACI is relatively insensitive to the treatment of ice and mixed-phase cloud overlying warm cloud, there are indications that more restrictive treatments of ice in the column result in a low bias in the estimated magnitude of the liquid water path adjustment and a high bias in the estimated magnitude of the droplet number forcing. Since the present work is the first PRP decomposition of the aerosol ERF into RFaci and fast cloud adjustments, idealized experiments are conducted to provide evidence that the PRP results are accurate. The experiments show that using low-frequency (daily or monthly) time-averaged model output of the cloud property fields underestimates the ERF, but 3-hourly mean output is sufficiently frequent.
Date Acceptance
2019-01-11
ISSN
1680-7367
Publisher
Copernicus Publications
Start Page
1
End Page
20
Journal / Book Title
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
Copyright Statement
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Identifier
https://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/acp-2018-1304/
Subjects
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Publication Status
Published online
Date Publish Online
2019-01-17