Yong-Sang Choi

Tightening of tropical ascent and high clouds key to precipitation change in a warmer climate

The change of global-mean precipitation under global warming and interannual variability is predominantly controlled by the change of atmospheric longwave radiative cooling. Here we show that tightening of the ascending branch of the Hadley Circulation coupled with a decrease in tropical high cloud fraction is key in modulating precipitation response to surface warming. The magnitude of high cloud shrinkage is a primary contributor to the intermodel spread in the changes of tropical-mean outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and global-mean precipitation per unit surface warming (dP/dTs) for both interannual variability and global warming. Compared to observations, most Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 models underestimate the rates of interannual tropical-mean dOLR/dTs and global-mean dP/dTs, consistent with the muted tropical high cloud shrinkage. We find that the five models that agree with the observation-based interannual dP/dTs all predict dP/dTs under global warming higher than the ensemble mean dP/dTs from the ∼20 models analysed in this study.

Observational estimation of radiative feedback to surface air temperature over Northern High Latitudes

The high-latitude climate system contains complicated, but largely veiled physical feedback processes. Climate predictions remain uncertain, especially for the Northern High Latitudes (NHL; north of 60°N), and observational constraint on climate modeling is vital. This study estimates local radiative feedbacks for NHL based on the CERES/Terra satellite observations during March 2000–November 2014. The local shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiative feedback parameters are calculated from linear regression of radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere on surface air temperatures. These parameters are estimated by the de-seasonalization and 12-month moving average of the radiative fluxes over NHL. The estimated magnitudes of the SW and the LW radiative feedbacks in NHL are 1.88u2009±u20090.73 and 2.38u2009±u20090.59xa0Wxa0m−2xa0K−1, respectively. The parameters are further decomposed into individual feedback components associated with surface albedo, water vapor, lapse rate, and clouds, as a product of the change in climate variables from ERA-Interim reanalysis estimates and their pre-calculated radiative kernels. The results reveal the significant role of clouds in reducing the surface albedo feedback (1.13u2009±u20090.44xa0Wxa0m−2xa0K−1 in the cloud-free condition, and 0.49u2009±u20090.30xa0Wxa0m−2xa0K−1 in the all-sky condition), while the lapse rate feedback is predominant in LW radiation (1.33u2009±u20090.18xa0Wxa0m−2xa0K−1). However, a large portion of the local SW and LW radiative feedbacks were not simply explained by the sum of these individual feedbacks.

Revisiting the iris effect of tropical cirrus clouds with TRMM and A‐Train satellite data

Just as the iris of human eye controls the light influx (iris effect), tropical anvil cirrus clouds may regulate the Earths surface warming by controlling outgoing longwave radiation. This study examines this possible effect with monthly satellite observations such as Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer cirrus fraction, and Clouds and the Earths Radiant Energy System top-of-the-atmosphere radiative fluxes averaged over different tropical domains from March 2000 to October 2014. To confirm that high-level cirrus is relevant to this study, Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization high cloud observations were also analyzed from June 2006 to December 2015. Our analysis revealed that the increase in sea surface temperature in the tropical western Pacific tends to concentrate convective cloud systems. This concentration effect very likely induces the significant reduction of both stratiform rain rate and cirrus fraction, without appreciable change in the convective rain rate. This reduction of stratiform rain rate and cirrus fraction cannot be found over its subregion or the tropical eastern Pacific, where the concentration effect of anvil cirrus is weak. Consistently, over the tropical western Pacific, the higher ratio of convective rain rate to total rain rate (i.e., precipitation efficiency) significantly correlates with warmer sea surface temperature and lower cirrus fraction. The reduced cirrus eventually increased outgoing longwave radiation to a greater degree than absorbed solar radiation. Finally, the negative relationship between precipitation efficiency and cirrus fraction tends to correspond to a low global equilibrium climate sensitivity in the models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. This suggests that tropical anvil cirrus clouds exert a negative climate feedback in strong association with precipitation efficiency.

Long-term change of the atmospheric energy cycles and weather disturbances

Weather disturbances are the manifestation of mean atmospheric energy cascading into eddies, thus identifying atmospheric energy structure is of fundamental importance to understand the weather variability in a changing climate. The question is whether our observational data can lead to a consistent diagnosis on the energy conversion characteristics. Here we investigate the atmospheric energy cascades by a simple framework of Lorenz energy cycle, and analyze the energy distribution in mean and eddy fields as forms of potential and kinetic energy. It is found that even the widely utilized independent reanalysis datasets, NCEP-DOE AMIP-II Reanalysis (NCEP2) and ERA-Interim (ERA-INT), draw different conclusions on the change of weather variability measured by eddy-related kinetic energy. NCEP2 shows an increased mean-to-eddy energy conversion and enhanced eddy activity due to efficient baroclinic energy cascade, but ERA-INT shows relatively constant energy cascading structure between the 1980s and the 2000s. The source of discrepancy mainly originates from the uncertainties in hydrological variables in the mid-troposphere. Therefore, much efforts should be made to improve mid-tropospheric observations for more reliable diagnosis of the weather disturbances as a consequence of man-made greenhouse effect.

Multiple aspects of northern hemispheric wintertime cold extremes as revealed by Markov chain analysis

High-impact cold extremes have continued to bring devastating socioeconomic losses in recent years. In order to explain the exposure to cold extremes more comprehensively, this study investigates multiple aspects of boreal winter cold extremes, i.e., frequency, persistence, and entropy (Markovian descriptors). Cold extremes are defined by the bottom 10th percentile of daily minimum temperatures during 1950-2014 over the northern hemisphere. The spatial and temporal distributions of Markovian descriptors during 65 years are examined. Climatological mean fields show the spatial coincidence of higher frequency, shorter persistence, and higher entropy of cold extremes, and vice versa. In regard to the temporal variations over six representative regions of North America, Europe, and Asia, all regions share a decreasing tendency of frequency with the increases in regional winter mean temperature. By contrast, persistence and entropy show their intrinsic decadal variability depending on regions irrespective of the regional temperature variability, which give different information from frequency. Therefore, the exposure to cold extremes would not simply decrease with regional warming. Rather these results indicate that the descriptors with multiple aspects of the extremes would be needed to embrace the topical features as well as the holistic nature of cold extremes.