Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Li-Wei Chao, Andrew E. Dessler
Summary: This study evaluates the performance of models from CMIP5 and CMIP6 by comparing feedbacks in models with those inferred from observations. It found no systematic disagreements between the two, but noted differences in individual models' ability to reproduce observations. The study also identified structural differences and unforced pattern effects as important sources of uncertainty in the model ensembles when comparing with observational data.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Tsuyoshi Koshiro, Hideaki Kawai, Akira T. Noda
Summary: The response of subtropical marine low cloud cover to global warming is an important and uncertain issue. In this study, using state-of-the-art climate models, it is found that the estimated cloud-top entrainment index consistently decreases with low cloud cover in warmer sea surface temperature conditions, implying a virtually certain positive feedback.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2022)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Tomoki Ohno, Akira T. Noda, Tatsuya Seiki, Masaki Satoh
Summary: High clouds have significant impacts on the Earth's radiation balance, and understanding their changes in warmer climates is crucial for climate projection science. Local processes within high clouds are found to play a significant role in addition to large-scale circulations, with the pressure level of high clouds affecting their area feedback.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Yongxiao Liang, Nathan P. Gillett, Adam H. Monahan
Summary: This study investigates the use of cloud properties to constrain future climate warming and develops a multivariate linear regression model. The results show that using cloud metrics as constraints produces more accurate projections of climate warming compared to unconstrained simulations. Additionally, evidence is provided for a higher lower bound of the projected warming range than previously thought.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
(2022)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
S. Fueglistaler, L. G. Silvers
Summary: This study demonstrates that the parameter Delta(conv), quantifying the difference in sea surface temperatures between regions of deep convection and the tropical or global average, captures the time-varying pattern effect in global shortwave cloud radiative effect variations. The quantification of cloud feedback critically depends on small changes in the shape of the sea surface temperature probability density distribution, emphasizing the importance of accurate and stable global climate records.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Isabel L. McCoy, Daniel T. McCoy, Robert Wood, Paquita Zuidema, Frida A. -M. Bender
Summary: This study uses a supervised neural network algorithm to categorize global satellite retrievals into three mesoscale cellular convective (MCC) cloud morphology patterns. These patterns differ in brightness associated with the amount of optically thin cloud features. The transitions from closed MCC to other morphology patterns, typically accompanied by more optically thin cloud features, are quantified to understand the contribution of morphology to the optical depth component of the shortwave cloud feedback. The results show that under projected environmental changes, the morphology shifts in optical depth between 65 degrees S and 65 degrees N contribute between 0.04 and 0.07 W m(-2) K-1 (aggregate of 0.06) to the global mean cloud feedback.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Yuntao Jian, Marco Y. T. Leung, Wen Zhou, Maoqiu Jian, Song Yang
Summary: Most CMIP5/6 models fail to simulate the correct relationship between ENSO and winter synoptic temperature variability (STV) over the Asian-Pacific-American region. The bias in the simulated ENSO-STV relationship can be traced back to the ENSO simulation, with patterns of warm sea surface temperature anomalies resulting in an unrealistic circulation and temperature gradient that affects the simulations of this connection. High pattern score (HPS) models show a robust ENSO-STV relationship in future projections, indicating potential implications for selecting future climate predictors.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Tomoo Ogura, Mark J. Webb, Adrian P. Lock
Summary: This study suggests that the positive sign of low cloud feedback in global warming projections is primarily caused by the increase in upward longwave radiation from the sea surface. Numerical experiments reveal that this increase leads to warming and absolute drying in the boundary layer, resulting in the positive low cloud feedback. This mechanism differs from the previous understanding that positive low cloud feedback is caused by increases in surface evaporation or vertical moisture contrast.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Thibault Vaillant de Guelis, Mark A. Vaughan, David M. Winker, Zhaoyan Liu
Summary: This paper presents a new two-dimensional and multi-channel feature detection algorithm, demonstrating its application to lidar backscatter measurements. The algorithm improves the detection of thin and persistent layers, enhances the discrimination between strongly and weakly scattering features, and utilizes signals from all available channels for improved layer detection accuracy.
ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Jiayu Zhang, Ping Huang, Fei Liu, Shijie Zhou
Summary: This study investigates the spatial pattern of amplitude changes in tropical intraseasonal and interannual variability under global warming, focusing on precipitation and circulation. The moisture budget and thermodynamic energy equations are found to be simultaneously tenable, with the vertical gradient of mean-state moist static energy being a key factor in determining the spatial pattern of circulation changes. Vertical gradients of moisture and dry static energy are modified by global warming, influencing the moisture and thermodynamic energy balances and ultimately the spatial pattern of precipitation and circulation changes.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
(2021)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Li-Wei Chao, Jacob C. Muller, Andrew E. Dessler
Summary: This study finds a large unforced pattern effect in CERES data, with significant changes in cloud feedback over different time periods. When compared to models, 27% of CMIP6 control runs show similarities to the observations. The study also reveals similarities between the spatial patterns in the CERES data and climate models.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Xinfeng Liang, Chao Liu, Rui M. Ponte, Don P. Chambers
Summary: Ocean heat content is crucial for estimating Earth's energy imbalance. A recent intercomparison study of eight oceanic objective analysis products found significant differences in the warming trends in different ocean layers and regions. The study highlights the importance of caution when using a single OA product for OHC studies due to potential product-dependent conclusions.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Robert C. J. Wills, Kyle C. Armour, David S. Battisti, Cristian Proistosescu, Luke A. Parsons
Summary: Internal climate variability has a significant impact on global mean surface temperature and top-of-atmosphere radiation, with slow modes of variability in high-latitude ocean regions affecting GMST anomalies. On the other hand, El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) plays a major role in the global energy budget. These findings provide insights into the influences of low-frequency internal variability and ENSO on climate sensitivity estimates.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Sourav Chatterjee, Muthalagu Ravichandran, Nuncio Murukesh, Roshin P. Raj, Ola M. Johannessen
Summary: Research has shown that the inter-decadal co-variability between summer sea ice extent in the Kara Sea sector of the Arctic Ocean and Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall has weakened in recent decades, particularly since the 1980s. However, during periods of rapidly declining sea ice extent in the Kara Sea, there is a consistent out-of-phase relationship between sea ice extent and frequency of extreme Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall events. Additionally, a possible physical mechanism for the relationship between late-season Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall extremes and summer sea ice extent in the Kara Sea has been suggested, focusing on the years since the 1980s.
NPJ CLIMATE AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Yongxiao Liang, Nathan p. Gillett, Adam h. Monahan
Summary: Physically based observational constraint methods can effectively reduce uncertainty in global warming projections. The study finds that global low-cloud metrics perform better in constraining surface temperature projections compared to past warming trend or regional climate metrics. Constrained climate models provide more accurate projections and narrower uncertainty ranges.
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Mark D. Zelinka, Ivy Tan, Lazaros Oreopoulos, George Tselioudis
Summary: Diagnosing the root causes of cloud feedback in climate models and understanding inter-model disagreement is crucial for understanding climate sensitivities. This study combines two analysis techniques to investigate cloud feedback. It finds that the shortwave cloud feedback is mainly influenced by within-regime cloud amount and optical depth feedbacks, while the across-regime components vary widely but are small on average. The study also suggests that thermodynamic and dynamical processes are important in setting the geographic structure of cloud feedback.
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Jiachen Ding, Ping Yang
Summary: This study developed tangent-linear and adjoint models for TAMU-VRTM, a vector radiative transfer model, and validated them in an atmosphere-ocean coupled system. These models are useful for remote sensing and data assimilation based on polarimetric observations. The tangent-linear and adjoint models accurately and efficiently compute derivatives of Stokes parameters, while the adjoint model can compute derivatives of observables with respect to scattering phase matrix elements.
JOURNAL OF THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Tong Ren, Ping Yang, Kevin Garrett, Yingtao Ma, Jiachen Ding, James Coy
Summary: This study developed a consistent snow and graupel single-scattering property database and successfully applied it in simulations and observations of global oceans.
MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Ocean
Jared W. Marquis, Erica K. Dolinar, Anne Garnier, James R. Campbell, Benjamin C. Ruston, Ping Yang, Jianglong Zhang
Summary: The assimilation of hyperspectral infrared sounders (HIS) observations is essential for numerical weather prediction, but it assumes clear-sky observations. However, it is found that around 7.7% of assimilated HIS observations are contaminated by cirrus clouds. These contaminating clouds exhibit characteristics consistent with cirrus clouds, such as low cloud optical depths and specific cloud-top temperatures.
JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Jiachen Ding, Ping Yang, Lifan Wang, Elaine Oran, Norman G. G. Loeb, William L. L. Smith Jr, Patrick Minnis
Summary: Spherical harmonic (SH) expansion is a useful tool for studying variables with valid values at all latitudes and longitudes. It can represent the variable as a sum of different SH components, which are obtained by multiplying the SH functions with their expansion coefficients. The study finds correlations between SH components of cloud radiative effect (CRE) and El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Hadley Circulation (HC). The SH power spectrum component anomaly of CRE at expansion degree 2 (l=2) is strongly correlated with ENSO, and the dipole patterns in the anomaly map can be explained by ENSO's impact on cloud properties.
EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Aleksandar Cikota, Jiachen Ding, Lifan Wang, Dietrich Baade, Stefan Cikota, Peter Hoflich, Justyn Maund, Ping Yang
Summary: Accurate distance determination is crucial for understanding the intrinsic properties of astrophysical objects. In this study, we used photometry and imaging polarimetry observations of the light echo AT 2019xis to independently determine the distance to SN 1987A. Our results, obtained using a radiative transfer model, range from 49.09 +/- 2.16 kpc to 59.39 +/- 3.27 kpc, consistent with previous literature values. This study highlights the potential of light echoes as a tool for distance determination in the Milky Way.
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
C. Zhou, M. Wang, M. D. Zelinka, Y. Liu, Y. Dong, K. C. Armour
Summary: In this study, simulations are conducted using CESM1 to calculate the forcing efficacy of 10 different forcing agents. The results show that the efficacy of each forcing agent can be largely explained in terms of the radiative feedbacks associated with the different surface temperature patterns induced by the forcing agents. The study also quantifies how the state dependence of feedbacks on global mean surface temperature anomalies impacts forcing efficacies.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Jiachen Ding, Ping Yang, Mark T. Lemmon, Yuheng Zhang
Summary: The study shows that carbon dioxide ice crystals in the Martian atmosphere can create halos, and a recent halo observed on Mars may be caused by a mixture of water ice crystals and CO2 ice crystals.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Optics
Jiachen Ding, Ping Yang, Gorden Videen
Summary: The study investigates the relation between the ice-crystal scattering phase function at 180° (P11(180°)) and particle size (L) using the invariant imbedding T-matrix method and the physical geometric-optics method (PGOM). The P11(180°) - L relation is quantitatively analyzed for typical ice-crystal shapes. The dependence of the P11(180°) - L relation on particle shape can be utilized to detect ice-cloud particle shapes using spaceborne lidar observations.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Masanori Saito, Ping Yang
Summary: This study quantifies the impacts of small-scale surface irregularities of atmospheric ice crystals on lidar backscattering properties and suggests an appropriate range of surface roughness for interpreting lidar observations of ice clouds. It is of great significance for accurately interpreting lidar observations of ice clouds.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Optics
Yuheng Zhang, Jiachen Ding, Ping Yang, Gorden Videen
Summary: The physical geometric-optics method (PGOM) is used to compute the single-scattering properties of faceted dielectric particles by combining physical-optics effects and the geometric-optics ray-tracing procedure. The accuracy of the PGOM depends on the characteristic size and maximum dimension of the particles, while the accuracy of the geometric-optics approximation (GOA) improves with increasing particle size.
JOURNAL OF QUANTITATIVE SPECTROSCOPY & RADIATIVE TRANSFER
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Jangho Lee, Andrew E. Dessler
Summary: This study uses historic mortality and temperature data from 106 cities in the United States to develop a model that predicts deaths due to temperature. It found that temperature-related deaths increase as the climate warms, mainly due to an expanding and aging population. For global average warming below 3°C, climate change slightly reduces temperature-related mortality in the U.S. The importance of this study is rated 8 out of 10.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Mark D. Zelinka, Christopher J. Smith, Yi Qin, Karl E. Taylor
Summary: This article evaluates the approximate partial radiative perturbation (APRP) method for estimating aerosol effective radiative forcing (ERF) using simulations conducted in CMIP6. The study finds that previously published APRP-derived estimates are biased due to two coding errors, but correcting these biases improves the accuracy and agreement with benchmark estimates.
ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
John E. Yorks, Jun Wang, Matthew J. McGill, Melanie Follette -Cook, Edward P. Nowottnick, Jeffrey S. Reid, Peter R. Colarco, Jianglong Zhang, Olga Kalashnikova, Hongbin Yu, Franco Marenco, Joseph A. Santanello, Tammy M. Weckwerth, Zhanqing Li, James R. Campbell, Ping Yang, Minghui Diao, Vincent Noel, Kerry G. Meyer, James L. Carr, Michael Garay, Kenneth Christian, Angela Bennedetti, Allison M. Ring, Alice Crawford, Michael J. Pavolonis, Valentina Aquila, Jhoon Kim, Shobha Kondragunta
Summary: A SmallSat mission concept called TOMCAT is proposed to carry out time-varying optical measurements of clouds and aerosol transport from space. TOMCAT aims to statistically resolve diurnal and vertical variation of cloud properties, determine the impacts of boundary layer diurnal variation on air quality and cloud distributions, and characterize smoke and dust emission processes. TOMCAT plans to deliver its data products in near-real time and offer hazard-monitoring capabilities for smoke, dust, and volcanic plumes.
BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY
(2023)
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Tong Ren, Ping Yang, Xianglei Huang, Xiuhong Chen, Zhaoyi Shen
Summary: This study applies the SPARTACUS algorithm to simulate cloud fields with different vertical resolutions and discovers that cloud-top longwave radiative cooling intensifies as the vertical resolution increases. Furthermore, including horizontal radiative transfer enhances the cooling effect across various cloud patterns.
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
