Linearity of Outgoing Longwave Radiation: From an Atmospheric Column to Global Climate Models

Zhang, Yi; Jeevanjee, Nadir; Fueglistaler, Stephan

doi:10.1029/2020GL089235

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Linearity of Outgoing Longwave Radiation: From an Atmospheric Column to Global Climate Models

2020
By Zhang, Yi ; Jeevanjee, Nadir ; Fueglistaler, Stephan
Source: Geophysical Research Letters, 47(11)

[PDF-4.05 MB]

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Journal Title:

Geophysical Research Letters
Personal Author:

Zhang, Yi ; Jeevanjee, Nadir ; Fueglistaler, Stephan

Zhang, Yi ; Jeevanjee, Nadir ; Fueglistaler, Stephan Less -
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) ; CIMES (Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System)

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) ; CIMES (Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System) Less -
Description:

The linearity of global-mean outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) with surface temperature is a basic assumption in climate dynamics. This linearity manifests in global climate models, which robustly produce a global-mean longwave clear-sky (LWCS) feedback of 1.9 W/m2/K, consistent with idealized single-column models (Koll & Cronin, 2018, https//:doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1809868115). However, there is considerable spatial variability in the LWCS feedback, including negative values over tropical oceans (known as the “super-greenhouse effect”) which are compensated for by larger values in the subtropics/extratropics. Therefore, it is unclear how the idealized single-column results are relevant for the global-mean LWCS feedback in comprehensive climate models. Here we show with a simple analytical theory and model output that the compensation of this spatial variability to produce a robust global-mean feedback can be explained by two facts: (1) When conditioned upon free-tropospheric column relative humidity (RH), the LWCS feedback is independent of RH, and (2) the global histogram of free-tropospheric column RH is largely invariant under warming.
Keywords:

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Greenhouse effect, Atmospheric
Source:

Geophysical Research Letters, 47(11)
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL089235
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

Grant no. NA18OAR4320123
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Submitted
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urn:sha256:8e7c64666eea77192419c4df12334def6ce50f7f1dd3f9811a5873e130d5c057
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Linearity of Outgoing Longwave Radiation: From an Atmospheric Column to Global Climate Models

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