Identification

Title

Importance of longwave radiative forcing by icy clouds in maintaining miocene high‐latitude warmth

Abstract

During the early‐to‐middle Miocene, global mean surface temperature (GMST) was approximately 8°C warmer than preindustrial, with a greater temperature increase in polar regions than the tropics. However, existing Miocene simulations underestimate this warmth, particularly in northern high latitudes. To address this discrepancy, we investigate the potential role of cloud phase. Using the Community Earth System Model, we conduct a paleoclimate sensitivity study focused on modifying ice nucleation and cloud phase partitioning schemes. These modifications increase the GMST, with a strong temperature rise in high latitudes and a muted increase in the tropics. These increases are driven by enhanced longwave cloud forcing, resulting from increased ice cloud amounts and cloud water content, and are amplified by water vapor and lapse rate feedbacks in the Arctic. Our study highlights that the improved parameterizations of cloud phase processes enhance models' capability to simulate Miocene high‐latitude warmth and potentially other warm climates.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d71v5kdc

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

2025-04-16T00:00:00Z

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

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

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