Impact of poleward heat and moisture transports on Arctic clouds and climate simulation

Many general circulation models (GCMs) have difficulty simulating Arctic clouds and climate, causing substantial inter-model spread. To address this issue, two Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) simulations from the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) and Seoul National Univers...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atmospheric chemistry and physics 2020-03, Vol.20 (5), p.2953-2966
Main Authors: Baek, Eun-Hyuk, Kim, Joo-Hong, Park, Sungsu, Kim, Baek-Min, Jeong, Jee-Hoon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air temperature
Analysis
Arctic climates
Arctic clouds
Atmosphere
Atmospheric models
Climate
Climate models
Cloud water
Clouds
Clouds (Meteorology)
Cold
Computer simulation
Condensation
Convection
Eddies
Feedback
Fluxes
General circulation models
Heat
Heat and moisture transport
Ice
Intercomparison
Meridional circulation
Moisture
Polar environments
Polar lows
Prejudice
Radiation
Radiation (Physics)
Researchers
Simulation
Surface-air temperature relationships
Water vapor
Water vapour
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Summary:Many general circulation models (GCMs) have difficulty simulating Arctic clouds and climate, causing substantial inter-model spread. To address this issue, two Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) simulations from the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) and Seoul National University (SNU) Atmosphere Model version 0 (SAM0) with a unified convection scheme (UNICON) are employed to identify an effective mechanism for improving Arctic cloud and climate simulations. Over the Arctic, SAM0 produced a larger cloud fraction and cloud liquid mass than CAM5, reducing the negative Arctic cloud biases in CAM5. The analysis of cloud water condensation rates indicates that this improvement is associated with an enhanced net condensation rate of water vapor into the liquid condensate of Arctic low-level clouds, which in turn is driven by enhanced poleward transports of heat and moisture by the mean meridional circulation and transient eddies. The reduced Arctic cloud biases lead to improved simulations of surface radiation fluxes and near-surface air temperature over the Arctic throughout the year. The association between the enhanced poleward transports of heat and moisture and increase in liquid clouds over the Arctic is also evident not only in both models, but also in the multi-model analysis. Our study demonstrates that enhanced poleward heat and moisture transport in a model can improve simulations of Arctic clouds and climate.
ISSN:1680-7324
1680-7316
1680-7324
DOI:10.5194/acp-20-2953-2020