scholarly journals Quantifying the Influence of Cloud Radiative Feedbacks on Arctic Surface Warming Using Cloud Locking in an Earth System Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (15) ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Middlemas ◽  
J. E. Kay ◽  
B. M. Medeiros ◽  
E. A. Maroon
Keyword(s):  
Earth System Model ◽  
System Model ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Surface Warming ◽  
Radiative Feedbacks ◽  
Arctic Surface

scholarly journals Present and future aerosol impacts on Arctic climate change in the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 10413-10438
Author(s):  
Ulas Im ◽  
Kostas Tsigaridis ◽  
Gregory Faluvegi ◽  
Peter L. Langen ◽  
Joshua P. French ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
System Model ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosols ◽  
Emission Reductions ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Arctic Surface

Abstract. The Arctic is warming 2 to 3 times faster than the global average, partly due to changes in short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) including aerosols. In order to study the effects of atmospheric aerosols in this warming, recent past (1990–2014) and future (2015–2050) simulations have been carried out using the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model to study the aerosol burdens and their radiative and climate impacts over the Arctic (>60∘ N), using anthropogenic emissions from the Eclipse V6b and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) databases, while global annual mean greenhouse gas concentrations were prescribed and kept fixed in all simulations. Results showed that the simulations have underestimated observed surface aerosol levels, in particular black carbon (BC) and sulfate (SO42-), by more than 50 %, with the smallest biases calculated for the atmosphere-only simulations, where winds are nudged to reanalysis data. CMIP6 simulations performed slightly better in reproducing the observed surface aerosol concentrations and climate parameters, compared to the Eclipse simulations. In addition, simulations where atmosphere and ocean are fully coupled had slightly smaller biases in aerosol levels compared to atmosphere-only simulations without nudging. Arctic BC, organic aerosol (OA), and SO42- burdens decrease significantly in all simulations by 10 %–60 % following the reductions of 7 %–78 % in emission projections, with the Eclipse ensemble showing larger reductions in Arctic aerosol burdens compared to the CMIP6 ensemble. For the 2030–2050 period, the Eclipse ensemble simulated a radiative forcing due to aerosol–radiation interactions (RFARI) of -0.39±0.01 W m−2, which is −0.08 W m−2 larger than the 1990–2010 mean forcing (−0.32 W m−2), of which -0.24±0.01 W m−2 was attributed to the anthropogenic aerosols. The CMIP6 ensemble simulated a RFARI of −0.35 to −0.40 W m−2 for the same period, which is −0.01 to −0.06 W m−2 larger than the 1990–2010 mean forcing of −0.35 W m−2. The scenarios with little to no mitigation (worst-case scenarios) led to very small changes in the RFARI, while scenarios with medium to large emission mitigations led to increases in the negative RFARI, mainly due to the decrease in the positive BC forcing and the decrease in the negative SO42- forcing. The anthropogenic aerosols accounted for −0.24 to −0.26 W m−2 of the net RFARI in 2030–2050 period, in Eclipse and CMIP6 ensembles, respectively. Finally, all simulations showed an increase in the Arctic surface air temperatures throughout the simulation period. By 2050, surface air temperatures are projected to increase by 2.4 to 2.6 ∘C in the Eclipse ensemble and 1.9 to 2.6 ∘C in the CMIP6 ensemble, compared to the 1990–2010 mean. Overall, results show that even the scenarios with largest emission reductions leads to similar impact on the future Arctic surface air temperatures and sea-ice extent compared to scenarios with smaller emission reductions, implying reductions of greenhouse emissions are still necessary to mitigate climate change.

scholarly journals Present and future aerosol impacts on Arctic climate change in the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulas Im ◽  
Kostas Tsigaridis ◽  
Gregory Faluvegi ◽  
Peter L. Langen ◽  
Joshua P. French ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
System Model ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Anthropogenic Aerosols ◽  
Emission Reductions ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Arctic Surface

Abstract. The Arctic is warming two to three times faster than the global average, partly due to changes in short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) including aerosols. In order to study the effects of atmospheric aerosols in this warming, recent past (1990–2014) and future (2015–2050) simulations have been carried out using the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model to study the aerosol burdens and their radiative and climate impacts over the Arctic (>60° N), using anthropogenic emissions from the Eclipse V6b and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) databases. Surface aerosol levels, in particular black carbon (BC) and sulfate (SO42−), have been significantly underestimated by more than 50 %, with the smallest biases calculated for the nudged atmosphere-only simulations. CMIP6 simulations performed slightly better in simulating both surface concentrations of aerosols and climate parameters, compared to the Eclipse simulations. In addition, fully-coupled simulations had slightly smaller biases in aerosol levels compared to atmosphere only simulations without nudging. Arctic BC, organic carbon (OC) and SO42− burdens decrease significantly in all simulations following the emission projections, with the CMIP6 ensemble showing larger reductions in Arctic aerosol burdens compared to the Eclipse ensemble. For the 2030–2050 period, both the Eclipse Current Legislation (CLE) and the Maximum Feasible Reduction (MFR) ensembles simulated an aerosol top of the atmosphere (TOA) forcing of −0.39±0.01 W m−2, of which −0.24±0.01 W m−2 were attributed to the anthropogenic aerosols. The CMIP6 SSP3-7.0 scenario simulated a TOA aerosol forcing of −0.35 W m−2 for the same period, while SSP1-2.6 and SSP2-4.5 scenarios simulated a slightly more negative TOA forcing (−0.40 W m−2), of which the anthropogenic aerosols accounted for −0.26 W m−2. Finally, all simulations showed an increase in the Arctic surface air temperatures both throughout the simulation period. In 2050, surface air temperatures are projected to increase by 2.4 °C to 2.6 °C in the Eclipse ensemble and 1.9 °C to 2.6 °C in the CMIP6 ensemble, compared to the 1990–2010 mean. Overall, results show that even the scenarios with largest emission reductions lead to similar impact on the future Arctic surface air temperatures compared to scenarios with smaller emission reductions, while scenarios no or little mitigation leads to much larger sea-ice loss, implying that even though the magnitude of aerosol reductions lead to similar responses in surface air temperatures, high mitigation of aerosols are still necessary to limit sea-ice loss.

scholarly journals Potential limitations of using a modal aerosol approach for sulfate geoengineering applications in climate models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Visioni ◽  
Simone Tilmes ◽  
Charles Bardeen ◽  
Michael Mills ◽  
Douglas G. MacMartin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Stratospheric Aerosol ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
System Model ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Sulfate Aerosols ◽  
Ice Clouds ◽  
Surface Warming ◽  
Computationally Intensive ◽  
Microphysical Processes

Abstract. Simulating the complex aerosol microphysical processes in a comprehensive Earth System Model can be very computationally intensive and therefore many models utilize a modal approach, where aerosol size distributions are represented by observations-derived lognormal functions. This approach has been shown to yield satisfactory results in a large array of applications, but there may be cases where the simplification in this approach may produce some shortcomings. In this work we show specific conditions under which the current approximations used in modal approaches might yield some incorrect answers. Using results from the Community Earth System Model v1 (CESM1) Geoengineering Large Ensemble (GLENS) project, we analyze the effects in the troposphere of a continuous increasing load of sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere, with the aim of counteracting the surface warming produced by non-mitigated increasing greenhouse gases concentration between 2020–2100. We show that the simulated results pertaining to the evolution of sea salt and dust aerosols in the upper troposphere are not realistic due to internal mixing assumptions in the modal aerosol treatment, which in this case reduces the size, and thus the settling velocities, of those particles and ultimately changes their mixing ratio below the tropopause. The unnatural increase of these aerosol species affects, in turn, the simulation of upper tropospheric ice formation, resulting in an increase in ice clouds that is not due to any meaningful physical mechanisms. While we show that this does not significantly affect the overall results of the simulations, we point to some areas where results should be interpreted with care in modeling simulations using similar approximations: in particular, the evolution of upper tropospheric clouds when large amount of sulfate is present in the stratosphere, as after a large explosive volcanic eruption or in similar stratospheric aerosol injection cases. Finally, we suggest that this could be avoided if sulfate aerosols in the coarse mode, the predominant species in these situation, are treated separately from other aerosol species in the model.

scholarly journals Southern Ocean convection shutdown controls potential for long-term climate warming by greenhouse gases

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ada Gjermundsen ◽  
Aleksi Nummelin ◽  
D. Olivié ◽  
Mats Bentsen ◽  
Øyvind Seland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Marine Boundary Layer ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Concentration ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
System Model ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Surface Warming

Abstract The effective climate sensitivity (EffCS) estimates the equilibrium near-surface temperature increase due to an doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, and is a widely used metric to characterise potential global warming. Cloud feedback, with considerable contribution from marine boundary layer clouds over the Southern Ocean (SO), has been identified as the main source to the spread and the increase in EffCS in the Earth System Models participating in phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). We trace the difference in EffCS between the Community Earth System Model (CESM2, EffCS of 5.3K) and the Norwegian Earth System model (NorESM2; EffCS of 2.5K), to SO circulation response. NorESM2 stores more heat at depth than CESM2, which delays the SO surface warming, SO cloud response, and ultimately the global surface warming by centuries in comparison to CESM2. The link between SO and EffCS is seen across 41 CMIP6 models; those with a low EffCS exhibit substantial deep SO warming. The observed slow surface but fast subsurface SO warming supports the notion of SO control over EffCS.

Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology Earth System Model and Its Simulation Characteristics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gyundo Pak ◽  
Yign Noh ◽  
Myong-In Lee ◽  
Sang-Wook Yeh ◽  
Daehyun Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
System Model ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Ocean Science

scholarly journals Climate Change Projection in the Twenty-First Century Simulated by NIMS-KMA CMIP6 Model Based on New GHGs Concentration Pathways

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun Min Sung ◽  
Jisun Kim ◽  
Sungbo Shim ◽  
Jeong-byn Seo ◽  
Sang-Hoon Kwon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
First Century ◽  
System Model ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Future Projections ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractThe National Institute of Meteorological Sciences-Korea Meteorological Administration (NIMS-KMA) has participated in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) and provided long-term simulations using the coupled climate model. The NIMS-KMA produces new future projections using the ensemble mean of KMA Advanced Community Earth system model (K-ACE) and UK Earth System Model version1 (UKESM1) simulations to provide scientific information of future climate changes. In this study, we analyze four experiments those conducted following the new shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) based scenarios to examine projected climate change in the twenty-first century. Present day (PD) simulations show high performance skill in both climate mean and variability, which provide a reliability of the climate models and reduces the uncertainty in response to future forcing. In future projections, global temperature increases from 1.92 °C to 5.20 °C relative to the PD level (1995–2014). Global mean precipitation increases from 5.1% to 10.1% and sea ice extent decreases from 19% to 62% in the Arctic and from 18% to 54% in the Antarctic. In addition, climate changes are accelerating toward the late twenty-first century. Our CMIP6 simulations are released to the public through the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) international data sharing portal and are used to support the establishment of the national adaptation plan for climate change in South Korea.

scholarly journals Quantifying the Cloud Particle‐Size Feedback in an Earth System Model

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (19) ◽  
pp. 10910-10917
Author(s):  
Jiang Zhu ◽  
Christopher J. Poulsen
Keyword(s):  
Particle Size ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
System Model ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Cloud Particle

scholarly journals Simulations of the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period using the NASA/GISS ModelE2-R Earth System Model

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 2811-2842 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Chandler ◽  
L. E. Sohl ◽  
J. A. Jonas ◽  
H. J. Dowsett
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Earth System Model ◽  
Warm Period ◽  
System Model ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Future Global Warming

Abstract. Climate reconstructions of the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP) bear many similarities to aspects of future global warming as projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In particular, marine and terrestrial paleoclimate data point to high latitude temperature amplification, with associated decreases in sea ice and land ice and altered vegetation distributions that show expansion of warmer climate biomes into higher latitudes. NASA GISS climate models have been used to study the Pliocene climate since the USGS PRISM project first identified that the mid-Pliocene North Atlantic sea surface temperatures were anomalously warm. Here we present the most recent simulations of the Pliocene using the AR5/CMIP5 version of the GISS Earth System Model known as ModelE2-R. These simulations constitute the NASA contribution to the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) Experiment 2. Many findings presented here corroborate results from other PlioMIP multi-model ensemble papers, but we also emphasize features in the ModelE2-R simulations that are unlike the ensemble means. We provide discussion of features that show considerable improvement compared with simulations from previous versions of the NASA GISS models, improvement defined here as simulation results that more closely resemble the ocean core data as well as the PRISM3D reconstructions of the mid-Pliocene climate. In some regions even qualitative agreement between model results and paleodata are an improvement over past studies, but the dramatic warming in the North Atlantic and Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Sea in these new simulations is by far the most accurate portrayal ever of this key geographic region by the GISS climate model. Our belief is that continued development of key physical routines in the atmospheric model, along with higher resolution and recent corrections to mixing parameterizations in the ocean model, have led to an Earth System Model that will produce more accurate projections of future climate.

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