Identification

Title

On the increase of climate sensitivity and cloud feedback with warming in the community atmosphere models

Abstract

Modeling and paleoclimate proxy-based studies suggest that equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) depends on the background climate state, though the reason is not thoroughly understood. Here we study the state dependence of ECS over a large range of global mean surface temperature (GMST) in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) Versions 4, 5, and 6 by varying atmospheric CO(2)concentrations. We find a robust increase of ECS with GMST in all three models, albeit at different rates, which is primarily attributed to strengthening of the shortwave cloud feedback (lambda(cld)) at both high and low latitudes. Over high latitudes, increasing GMST leads to a reduction in the cloud ice fraction, weakening the (negative) cloud-phase feedback due to the phase transition of cloud ice to liquid and thereby strengthening lambda(cld). Over low-latitude regions, increasing GMST strengthens lambda(cld)likely through the nonlinear increase in water vapor, which causes low-cloud thinning through thermodynamic and radiative processes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7tb1b5s

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2020-09-28T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

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

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact