Responses of Tropical and Subtropical High-Cloud Statistics to Global Warming

Data from global high-resolution, nonhydrostatic simulations, covering a 1-yr period and with horizontal grid sizes of 7 and 14 km, were analyzed to evaluate the response of high cloud to global warming. The results indicate that, in a warmer atmosphere, high-cloud cover increases robustly and assoc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of climate 2014-10, Vol.27 (20), p.7753-7768
Main Authors: Noda, A. T., Satoh, M., Yamada, Y., Kodama, C., Seiki, T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmosphere
Atmospheres
Atmospheric models
Categories
Climate change
Climate models
Cloud cover
Clouds
Convection clouds
Cumulus clouds
Datasets
Experiments
Geographical distribution
Global warming
Meteorology
Modeling
Oceans
Radiative forcing
Satellites
Simulation
Statistical methods
Statistics
Studies
Tropical regions
Water
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Summary:Data from global high-resolution, nonhydrostatic simulations, covering a 1-yr period and with horizontal grid sizes of 7 and 14 km, were analyzed to evaluate the response of high cloud to global warming. The results indicate that, in a warmer atmosphere, high-cloud cover increases robustly and associated longwave (LW) cloud radiative forcing (CRF) increases on average. To develop a better understanding of high-cloud responses to climate change, the geographical distribution of high-cloud size obtained from the model was analyzed and compared with observations. In warmer atmospheres, the contribution per cloud to CRF decreases for both the LW and shortwave (SW) components. However, because of significant increases in the numbers of high clouds in almost all cloud size categories, the magnitude of both LW and SW CRF increases in the simulations. In particular, the contribution from an increase in the number of smaller clouds has more effect on the CRF change. It was also found that the ice and liquid water paths decrease in smaller clouds and that particularly the former contributes to reduced LW CRF per high cloud.
ISSN:0894-8755
1520-0442
DOI:10.1175/jcli-d-14-00179.1