EarthRef.org Reference Database (ERR)
Development and Maintenance by the EarthRef.org Database Team

Detailed Reference Information
Bony & Dufresne 2005
Bony, S. and Dufresne, J. (2005). Marine boundary layer clouds at the heart of tropical cloud feedback uncertainties in climate models. Geophysical Research Letters 32: doi: 10.1029/2005GL023851. issn: 0094-8276.

The radiative response of tropical clouds to global warming exhibits a large spread among climate models, and this constitutes a major source of uncertainty for climate sensitivity estimates. To better interpret the origin of that uncertainty, we analyze the sensitivity of the tropical cloud radiative forcing to a change in sea surface temperature that is simulated by 15 coupled models simulating climate change and current interannual variability. We show that it is in regimes of large-scale subsidence that the model results (1) differ the most in climate change and (2) disagree the most with observations in the current climate (most models underestimate the interannual sensitivity of clouds albedo to a change in temperature). This suggests that the simulation of the sensitivity of marine boundary layer clouds to changing environmental conditions constitutes, currently, the main source of uncertainty in tropical cloud feedbacks simulated by general circulation models.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Atmospheric Processes, Climate change and variability (1616, 1635, 3309, 4215, 4513), Atmospheric Processes, Boundary layer processes, Atmospheric Processes, Clouds and cloud feedbacks, Atmospheric Processes, Global climate models (1626, 4928), Atmospheric Processes, Tropical meteorology
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
2000 Florida Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009-1277
USA
1-202-462-6900
1-202-328-0566
service@agu.org
Click to clear formClick to return to previous pageClick to submit