Identification

Title

Individual feedback contributions to the seasonality of surface warming

Abstract

Using the climate feedback response analysis method, the authors examine the individual contributions of the CO₂ radiative forcing and climate feedbacks to the magnitude, spatial pattern, and seasonality of the transient surface warming response in a 1% yr⁻¹ CO₂ increase simulation of the NCAR Community Climate System Model, version 4 (CCSM4). The CO₂ forcing and water vapor feedback warm the surface everywhere throughout the year. The tropical warming is predominantly caused by the CO₂ forcing and water vapor feedback, while the evaporation feedback reduces the warming. Most feedbacks exhibit noticeable seasonal variations; however, their net effect has little seasonal variation due to compensating effects, which keeps the tropical warming relatively invariant all year long. The polar warming has a pronounced seasonal cycle, with maximum warming in fall/winter and minimum warming in summer. In summer, the large cancelations between the shortwave and longwave cloud feedbacks and between the surface albedo feedback warming and the cooling from the ocean heat storage/dynamics feedback lead to a warming minimum. In polar winter, surface albedo and shortwave cloud feedbacks are nearly absent due to a lack of insolation. However, the ocean heat storage feedback relays the polar warming due to the surface albedo feedback from summer to winter, and the longwave cloud feedback warms the polar surface. Therefore, the seasonal variations in the cloud feedback, surface albedo feedback, and ocean heat storage/dynamics feedback, directly caused by the strong annual cycle of insolation, contribute primarily to the large seasonal variation of polar warming. Furthermore, the CO₂ forcing and water vapor and atmospheric dynamics feedbacks add to the maximum polar warming in fall/winter.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

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code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7db82tx

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

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Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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title

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reference date

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publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

effective date

2014-07-15T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2014 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

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pointOfContact

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