Climate processes

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Surprising similarities in model and observational aerosol radiative forcing estimates

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Copernicus GmbH 20:1 (2020) 613-623

Authors:

Edward Gryspeerdt, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Andrew Gettelman, Florent F Malavelle, Hugh Morrison, David Neubauer, Daniel G Partridge, Philip Stier, Toshihiko Takemura, Hailong Wang, Minghuai Wang, Kai Zhang

Abstract:

Abstract. The radiative forcing from aerosols (particularly through their interaction with clouds) remains one of the most uncertain components of the human forcing of the climate. Observation-based studies have typically found a smaller aerosol effective radiative forcing than in model simulations and were given preferential weighting in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). With their own sources of uncertainty, it is not clear that observation-based estimates are more reliable. Understanding the source of the model and observational differences is thus vital to reduce uncertainty in the impact of aerosols on the climate. These reported discrepancies arise from the different methods of separating the components of aerosol forcing used in model and observational studies. Applying the observational decomposition to global climate model (GCM) output, the two different lines of evidence are surprisingly similar, with a much better agreement on the magnitude of aerosol impacts on cloud properties. Cloud adjustments remain a significant source of uncertainty, particularly for ice clouds. However, they are consistent with the uncertainty from observation-based methods, with the liquid water path adjustment usually enhancing the Twomey effect by less than 50 %. Depending on different sets of assumptions, this work suggests that model and observation-based estimates could be more equally weighted in future synthesis studies.
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Next-generation geospatial-temporal information technologies for disaster management

IBM Journal of Research and Development IBM 64:1/2 (2020) 5:1-5:12

Authors:

CM Albrecht, B Elmegreen, O Gunawan, HF Hamann, LJ Klein, S Lu, F Mariano, C Siebenschuh, J Schmude
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Aerosols enhance cloud lifetime and brightness along the stratus-to-cumulus transition

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences National Acad Sciences 117 (2020) 30

Authors:

Matthew W Christensen, William K Jones, Philip Stier
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Revisiting the 1888 Centennial Drought

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria CSIRO Publishing 132:2 (2020) 49-64

Authors:

Mathilde EH Ritman, Linden C Ashcroft
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Learning and Recognizing Archeological Features from LiDAR Data

2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data) IEEE (2019) 5630-5636

Authors:

Conrad M Albrecht, Chris Fisher, Marcus Freitag, Hendrik F Hamann, Sharathchandra Pankanti, Florencia Pezzutti, Francesca Rossi
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