The NOAA IR serves as an archival repository of NOAA-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by NOAA or funded partners.
As a repository, the NOAA IR retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
i
Significance of aerosol radiative effect in energy balance control on global precipitation change
-
2017
-
Source: Atmos. Sci. Lett., 18: 389-395.
[PDF-590.33 KB]
Details:
-
Alternative Title:Significance of aerosol radiative effect in energy balance control on global precipitation change
-
Journal Title:Atmospheric Science Letters
-
Personal Author:
-
NOAA Program & Office:
-
Description:Historical changes of global precipitation in the 20th century simulated by a climate model are investigated. The results simulated with alternate configurations of cloud microphysics are analyzed in the context of energy balance controls on global precipitation, where the latent heat changes associated with the precipitation change is nearly balanced with changes to atmospheric radiative cooling. The atmospheric radiative cooling is dominated by its clear-sky component, which is found to correlate with changes to both column water vapor and aerosol optical depth (AOD). The water vapor-dependent component of the clear-sky radiative cooling is then found to scale with global temperature change through the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship. This component results in a tendency of global precipitation increase with increasing temperature at a rate of approximately 2% K-1. Another component of the clear-sky radiative cooling, which is well correlated with changes to AOD, is also found to vary in magnitude among different scenarios with alternate configurations of cloud microphysics that controls the precipitation efficiency, a major factor influencing the aerosol scavenging process that can lead to different aerosol loadings. These results propose how different characteristics of cloud microphysics can cause different aerosol loadings that in turn perturb global energy balance to significantly change global precipitation. This implies a possible coupling of aerosol-cloud interaction with aerosol-radiation interaction in the context of global energy balance.
-
Keywords:
-
Source:Atmos. Sci. Lett., 18: 389-395.
-
DOI:
-
Document Type:
-
Funding:
-
Rights Information:CC BY
-
Compliance:PMC
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
