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Exploring the Effects of Atmospheric Forcings on Evaporation: Experimental Integration of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer and Shallow Subsurface
Published on: June 8, 2015
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Reducing the aerosol forcing uncertainty using observational constraints on warm rain processes.
Johannes Mülmenstädt1,2, Christine Nam1, Marc Salzmann1
1Institute of Meteorology, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
Science Advances
|June 12, 2020
Summary
Global climate models struggle to accurately represent how clouds respond to aerosols. New methods using precipitation observations can improve these climate model estimates of rapid cloud adjustments.
Area of Science:
- Climate Science
- Atmospheric Physics
- Cloud Microphysics
Background:
- Global climate models (GCMs) exhibit discrepancies with observational data regarding rapid cloud adjustments to anthropogenic aerosols.
- Previous attempts to constrain GCM cloud parameterizations using observations have not resolved these disagreements.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and evaluate a novel approach for constraining GCMs using process-sensitive observations.
- To improve the accuracy of GCMs' representation of rapid cloud adjustments to aerosols.
Main Methods:
- Focus on observations sensitive to specific cloud processes, not just the atmospheric state.
- Incorporate assessments of process realism independent of aerosol effects, alongside aerosol susceptibility.
- Utilize precipitation intensity spectrum analysis for comparing observations and models.
Main Results:
- Process-sensitive precipitation observations can significantly reduce uncertainty in GCM estimates of rapid cloud adjustments.
- Understanding the precipitation intensity spectrum in both models and observations is crucial for effective constraints.
Conclusions:
- Observational constraints on GCMs can be enhanced by focusing on process-level realism and utilizing precipitation data.
- Further improvements in comparing model and observational precipitation characteristics are needed to fully realize the potential of these constraints.
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