Hideaki Kawai

CGILS: Results from the First Phase of an International Project to Understand the Physical Mechanisms of Low Cloud Feedbacks in Single Column Models

CGILS—the CFMIP-GASS Intercomparison of Large Eddy Models (LESs) and single column models (SCMs)—investigates the mechanisms of cloud feedback in SCMs and LESs under idealized climate change perturbation. This paper describes the CGILS results from 15 SCMs and 8 LES models. Three cloud regimes over the subtropical oceans are studied: shallow cumulus, cumulus under stratocumulus, and well-mixed coastal stratus/stratocumulus. In the stratocumulus and coastal stratus regimes, SCMs without activated shallow convection generally simulated negative cloud feedbacks, while models with active shallow convection generally simulated positive cloud feedbacks. In the shallow cumulus alone regime, this relationship is less clear, likely due to the changes in cloud depth, lateral mixing, and precipitation or a combination of them. The majority of LES models simulated negative cloud feedback in the well-mixed coastal stratus/stratocumulus regime, and positive feedback in the shallow cumulus and stratocumulus regime. A general framework is provided to interpret SCM results: in a warmer climate, the moistening rate of the cloudy layer associated with the surface-based turbulence parameterization is enhanced; together with weaker large-scale subsidence, it causes negative cloud feedback. In contrast, in the warmer climate, the drying rate associated with the shallow convection scheme is enhanced. This causes positive cloud feedback. These mechanisms are summarized as the “NESTS” negative cloud feedback and the “SCOPE” positive cloud feedback (Negative feedback from Surface Turbulence under weaker Subsidence—Shallow Convection PositivE feedback) with the net cloud feedback depending on how the two opposing effects counteract each other. The LES results are consistent with these interpretations.

The impact of parametrized convection on cloud feedback.

We investigate the sensitivity of cloud feedbacks to the use of convective parametrizations by repeating the CMIP5/CFMIP-2 AMIP/AMIP + 4K uniform sea surface temperature perturbation experiments with 10 climate models which have had their convective parametrizations turned off. Previous studies have suggested that differences between parametrized convection schemes are a leading source of inter-model spread in cloud feedbacks. We find however that ‘ConvOff’ models with convection switched off have a similar overall range of cloud feedbacks compared with the standard configurations. Furthermore, applying a simple bias correction method to allow for differences in present-day global cloud radiative effects substantially reduces the differences between the cloud feedbacks with and without parametrized convection in the individual models. We conclude that, while parametrized convection influences the strength of the cloud feedbacks substantially in some models, other processes must also contribute substantially to the overall inter-model spread. The positive shortwave cloud feedbacks seen in the models in subtropical regimes associated with shallow clouds are still present in the ConvOff experiments. Inter-model spread in shortwave cloud feedback increases slightly in regimes associated with trade cumulus in the ConvOff experiments but is quite similar in the most stable subtropical regimes associated with stratocumulus clouds. Inter-model spread in longwave cloud feedbacks in strongly precipitating regions of the tropics is substantially reduced in the ConvOff experiments however, indicating a considerable local contribution from differences in the details of convective parametrizations. In both standard and ConvOff experiments, models with less mid-level cloud and less moist static energy near the top of the boundary layer tend to have more positive tropical cloud feedbacks. The role of non-convective processes in contributing to inter-model spread in cloud feedback is discussed.

Probability Density Functions of Liquid Water Path and Cloud Amount of Marine Boundary Layer Clouds: Geographical and Seasonal Variations and Controlling Meteorological Factors

Abstract The subgrid-scale variability of the liquid water path (LWP) of marine boundary layer clouds in areas that correspond to the typical grid size of large-scale (global climate and weather prediction) atmospheric models (200 km × 200 km) is investigated using geostationary satellite visible data. Geographical and seasonal variations of homogeneity, skewness, and kurtosis of probability density functions (PDFs) of LWP are discussed, in addition to cloud amount. It is clear that not only cloud amount but also these subgrid-scale statistics have well-defined geographical patterns and seasonal variations. Furthermore, the meteorological factors that control subgrid-scale statistics of LWP that are related to boundary layer clouds are investigated using reanalysis data and PDFs of LWP data from satellites. Meteorological factors related to stability between 850 and 1000 hPa show high correlations with cloud amount and with the homogeneity, skewness, and kurtosis of PDFs of LWP of marine boundary layer cl...

Evaluating the diurnal cycle of upper-tropospheric ice clouds in climate models using SMILES observations

AbstractUpper-tropospheric ice cloud measurements from the Superconducting Submillimeter Limb Emission Sounder (SMILES) on the International Space Station (ISS) are used to study the diurnal cycle of upper-tropospheric ice cloud in the tropics and midlatitudes (40°S–40°N) and to quantitatively evaluate ice cloud diurnal variability simulated by 10 climate models. Over land, the SMILES-observed diurnal cycle has a maximum around 1800 local solar time (LST), while the model-simulated diurnal cycles have phases differing from the observed cycle by −4 to 12 h. Over ocean, the observations show much smaller diurnal cycle amplitudes than over land with a peak at 1200 LST, while the modeled diurnal cycle phases are widely distributed throughout the 24-h period. Most models show smaller diurnal cycle amplitudes over ocean than over land, which is in agreement with the observations. However, there is a large spread of modeled diurnal cycle amplitudes ranging from 20% to more than 300% of the observed over both lan...

Robustness, uncertainties, and emergent constraints in the radiative responses of stratocumulus cloud regimes to future warming

Future responses of cloud regimes are analyzed for five CMIP5 models forced with observed SSTs and subject to a patterned SST perturbation. Correlations between cloud properties in the control climate and changes in the warmer climate are investigated for each of a set of cloud regimes defined using a clustering methodology. The only significant (negative) correlation found is in the in-regime net cloud radiative effect for the stratocumulus regime. All models overestimate the in-regime albedo of the stratocumulus regime. Reasons for this bias and its relevance to the future response are investigated. A detailed evaluation of the models’ daily-mean contributions to the albedo from stratocumulus clouds with different cloud cover fractions reveals that all models systematically underestimate the relative occurrence of overcast cases but overestimate those of broken clouds. In the warmer climate the relative occurrence of overcast cases tends to decrease while that of broken clouds increases. This suggests a decrease in the climatological in-regime albedo with increasing temperature (a positive feedback); this is opposite to the feedback suggested by the analysis of the bulk in-regime albedo. Furthermore we find that the inter-model difference in the sign of the in-cloud albedo feedback is consistent with the difference in sign of the in-cloud liquid water path response, and there is a strong positive correlation between the in-regime liquid water path in the control climate and its response to warming. We therefore conclude that further breakdown of the in-regime properties into cloud cover and in-cloud properties is necessary to better understand the behavior of the stratocumulus regime. Since cloud water is a physical property and is independent of a model’s radiative assumptions, it could potentially provide a useful emergent constraint on cloud feedback.

Probability Density Functions of Liquid Water Path and Total Water Content of Marine Boundary Layer Clouds: Implications for Cloud Parameterization

AbstractMathematical forms of probability density functions (PDFs) of liquid water path (LWP) and total water content for marine boundary layer clouds are investigated using the homogeneity, skewness, and kurtosis of PDFs of LWP obtained from observations described in a companion paper. First, observed LWP PDF data are divided into four categories depending on the stability between 775 and 1000 hPa in order to investigate the characteristics of the PDFs of LWP depending on stability of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). The relationships between cloud amount and higher moments of LWP PDFs for different ABLs show different features. When the stability becomes larger, the LWP PDFs have larger homogeneity, smaller skewness, and smaller kurtosis for similar cloud amounts.To extract useful information about the PDFs of total water content for strongly and moderately stable ABLs, the relationship between LWP PDFs and PDFs of total water content is determined by introducing a set of simple assumptions for the...

Interpretation of Factors Controlling Low Cloud Cover and Low Cloud Feedback Using a Unified Predictive Index

AbstractThis paper reports a new index for low cloud cover (LCC), the Estimated Cloud-Top Entrainment Index (ECTEI), which is a modification of estimated inversion strength (EIS) and takes into account a cloud top entrainment (CTE) criterion. Shipboard cloud observation data confirm that the index is strongly correlated with LCC. We argue here that changes in LCC cannot be fully determined from changes in EIS only, but can be better determined from changes in both EIS and sea surface temperature (SST) based on the ECTEI. Furthermore, we argue that various proposed predictors of LCC change, including the moist static energy vertical gradient, SST, and mid-level clouds, can be better understood from the perspective of the ECTEI.

Single‐Column Model Simulations of Subtropical Marine Boundary‐Layer Cloud Transitions Under Weakening Inversions

Results are presented of the GASS/EUCLIPSE single-column model inter-comparison study on the subtropical marine low-level cloud transition. A central goal is to establish the performance of state-of-the-art boundary-layer schemes for weather and climate models for this cloud regime, using large-eddy simulations of the same scenes as a reference. A novelty is that the comparison covers four different cases instead of one, in order to broaden the covered parameter space. Three cases are situated in the North-Eastern Pacific, while one reflects conditions in the North-Eastern Atlantic. A set of variables is considered that reflects key aspects of the transition process, making use of simple metrics to establish the model performance. Using this method some longstanding problems in low level cloud representation are identified. Considerable spread exists among models concerning the cloud amount, its vertical structure and the associated impact on radiative transfer. The sign and amplitude of these biases differ somewhat per case, depending on how far the transition has progressed. After cloud breakup the ensemble median exhibits the well-known “too few too bright” problem. The boundary layer deepening rate and its state of decoupling are both underestimated, while the representation of the thin capping cloud layer appears complicated by a lack of vertical resolution. Encouragingly, some models are successful in representing the full set of variables, in particular the vertical structure and diurnal cycle of the cloud layer in transition. An intriguing result is that the median of the model ensemble performs best, inspiring a new approach in subgrid parameterization.