Reducing the aerosol forcing uncertainty using observational constraints on warm rain processes
Open Access
- 29 May 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science Advances
- Vol. 6 (22), eaaz6433
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz6433
Abstract
Global climate models (GCMs) disagree with other lines of evidence on the rapid adjustments of cloud cover and liquid water path to anthropogenic aerosols. Attempts to use observations to constrain the parameterizations of cloud processes in GCMs have failed to reduce the disagreement. We propose using observations sensitive to the relevant cloud processes rather than only to the atmospheric state and focusing on process realism in the absence of aerosol perturbations in addition to the process susceptibility to aerosols. We show that process-sensitive observations of precipitation can reduce the uncertainty on GCM estimates of rapid cloud adjustments to aerosols. The feasibility of an observational constraint depends on understanding the precipitation intensity spectrum in both observations and models and also on improving methods to compare the two.Funding Information
- U.S. Department of Energy (74358)
- H2020 European Research Council (306284)
- H2020 European Research Council (724602)
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (268020496)
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (FKZ01LK1504C)
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