NDLI: The vertical distribution of climate forcings and feedbacks from the surface to top of atmosphere

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Previdi, Michael Liepert, Beate G.
Copyright Year	2011
Abstract	The radiative forcings and feedbacks that determine Earth’s climate sensitivity are typically defined at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) or tropopause, yet climate sensitivity itself refers to a change in temperature at the surface. In this paper, we describe how TOA radiative perturbations translate into surface temperature changes. It is shown using first principles that radiation changes at the TOA can be equated with the change in energy stored by the oceans and land surface. This ocean and land heat uptake in turn involves an adjustment of the surface radiative and non-radiative energy fluxes, with the latter being comprised of the turbulent exchange of latent and sensible heat between the surface and atmosphere. We employ the radiative kernel technique to decompose TOA radiative feedbacks in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report climate models into components associated with changes in radiative heating of the atmosphere and of the surface. (We consider the equilibrium response of atmosphere-mixed layer ocean models subjected to an instantaneous doubling of atmospheric CO2). It is shown that most feedbacks, i.e., the temperature, water vapor and cloud feedbacks, (as well as CO2 forcing) affect primarily the turbulent energy exchange at the surface rather than the radiative energy exchange. Specifically, the temperature feedback increases the surface turbulent (radiative) energy loss by 2.87 W m−2 K−1 (0.60 W m−2 K−1) in the multimodel mean; the water vapor feedback decreases the surface turbulent energy loss by 1.07 W m−2 K−1 and increases the surface radiative heating by 0.89 W m−2 K−1; and the cloud feedback decreases both the turbulent energy loss and the radiative heating at the surface by 0.43 and 0.24 W m−2 K−1, respectively. Since changes to the surface turbulent energy exchange are dominated in the global mean sense by changes in surface evaporation, these results serve to highlight the fundamental importance of the global water cycle to Earth’s climate sensitivity.
Starting Page	941
Ending Page	951
Page Count	11
File Format	PDF
ISSN	09307575
Journal	Climate Dynamics
Volume Number	39
Issue Number	3-4
e-ISSN	14320894
Language	English
Publisher	Springer-Verlag
Publisher Date	2011-11-06
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Climate sensitivity Hydrological cycle Radiative feedbacks Surface energy budget Climate models Geophysics/Geodesy Meteorology/Climatology Oceanography
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Atmospheric Science

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