Articles | Volume 13, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1215-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1215-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
26 Aug 2022
Research article |
| 26 Aug 2022
| 26 Aug 2022
Evaluating uncertainty in aerosol forcing of tropical precipitation shifts
Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds,
Leeds, UK
College of Engineering, Maths and Physical Science, University of
Exeter, Exeter, UK
Ben B. B. Booth
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
Leighton A. Regayre
Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds,
Leeds, UK
Ken S. Carslaw
Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds,
Leeds, UK
David M. H. Sexton
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
Céline J. W. Bonfils
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
John W. Rostron
Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
Related authors
Masaru Yoshioka, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Amy H. Peace, Jim M. Haywood, Ying Chen, and Paul R. Field
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3244, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3244, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
We used advanced computer simulations to study how aerosol particles from a volcanic eruption in Iceland affected clouds. The eruption plume increased small droplets, but changes in cloud water and horizontal extent were not clear. Satellite comparisons between plume and non-plume regions can miss volcanic effects due to spatial variability in weather and aerosol, but simulations can isolate the impact by comparing cases with and without the eruption.
George Jordan, Florent Malavelle, Jim Haywood, Ying Chen, Ben Johnson, Daniel Partridge, Amy Peace, Eliza Duncan, Duncan Watson-Parris, David Neubauer, Anton Laakso, Martine Michou, and Pierre Nabat
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-835, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-835, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The 2014–15 Holuhraun eruption created a vast aerosol plume that acted as a natural experiment to assess how well climate models capture changes in cloud properties due to increased aerosol. We find that the models accurately represent the observed shift to smaller, more numerous cloud droplets. However, the models diverge in their aerosol induced changes to large-scale cloud properties, particularly cloud liquid water content. Our study shows that Holuhraun had a cooling effect on the Earth.
Amy H. Peace, Ying Chen, George Jordan, Daniel G. Partridge, Florent Malavelle, Eliza Duncan, and Jim M. Haywood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9533–9553, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9533-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9533-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Natural aerosols from volcanic eruptions can help us understand how anthropogenic aerosols modify climate. We use observations and model simulations of the 2014–2015 Holuhraun eruption plume to examine aerosol–cloud interactions in September 2014. We find a shift to clouds with smaller, more numerous cloud droplets in the first 2 weeks of the eruption. In the third week, the background meteorology and previous conditions experienced by air masses modulate the aerosol perturbation to clouds.
George Jordan, Florent Malavelle, Ying Chen, Amy Peace, Eliza Duncan, Daniel G. Partridge, Paul Kim, Duncan Watson-Parris, Toshihiko Takemura, David Neubauer, Gunnar Myhre, Ragnhild Skeie, Anton Laakso, and James Haywood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1939–1960, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1939-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1939-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The 2014–15 Holuhraun eruption caused a huge aerosol plume in an otherwise unpolluted region, providing a chance to study how aerosol alters cloud properties. This two-part study uses observations and models to quantify this relationship’s impact on the Earth’s energy budget. Part 1 suggests the models capture the observed spatial and chemical evolution of the plume, yet no model plume is exact. Understanding these differences is key for Part 2, where changes to cloud properties are explored.
Masaru Yoshioka, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Amy H. Peace, Jim M. Haywood, Ying Chen, and Paul R. Field
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3244, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3244, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
We used advanced computer simulations to study how aerosol particles from a volcanic eruption in Iceland affected clouds. The eruption plume increased small droplets, but changes in cloud water and horizontal extent were not clear. Satellite comparisons between plume and non-plume regions can miss volcanic effects due to spatial variability in weather and aerosol, but simulations can isolate the impact by comparing cases with and without the eruption.
Rachel W. N. Sansom, Jill S. Johnson, Leighton A. Regayre, Lindsay A. Lee, and Ken S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3104, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3104, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
The cloud transition from stratocumulus to cumulus features a distinct decrease in cloud cover. We used a high-resolution model to simulate many instances of the transition with different environmental conditions. In low aerosol conditions, the transition occurred faster due to drizzle depleting the cloud of moisture and aerosol, whereas in high aerosol conditions, other factors were more important. Understanding different regimes is important for accurately simulating clouds in global models.
Yusuf Bhatti, Duncan Watson-Parris, Leighton Regayre, Hailing Jia, David Neubauer, Ulas Im, Carl Svenhag, Nick Schutgens, Athanasios Tsikerdekis, Athanasios Nenes, Irfan Muhammed, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Ardit Arifi, Guangliang Fu, and Otto Hasekamp
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2848, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2848, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols (small airborne particles) impact Earth's climate, but their extent is unknown. By running climate model simulations and emulating millions of additional variants with different settings, we found that natural emissions like sea spray and sulfur are key sources of uncertainty in climate predictions. Our work shows that understanding these natural processes better can help improve climate models and make future climate projections more accurate.
Xinyue Shao, Yaman Liu, Xinyi Dong, Minghuai Wang, Ruochong Xu, Joel A. Thornton, Duseong S. Jo, Man Yue, Wenxiang Shen, Manish Shrivastava, Stephen R. Arnold, and Ken S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1526, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-1526, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Highly Oxygenated Organic Molecules (HOMs) are key precursors of secondary organic aerosols (SOA). Incorporating the HOMs chemical mechanism into a global climate model allows for a reasonable reproduction of observed HOM characteristics. HOM-SOA constitutes a significant fraction of global SOA, and its distribution and formation pathways exhibit strong sensitivity to uncertainties in autoxidation processes and peroxy radical branching ratios.
George Jordan, Florent Malavelle, Jim Haywood, Ying Chen, Ben Johnson, Daniel Partridge, Amy Peace, Eliza Duncan, Duncan Watson-Parris, David Neubauer, Anton Laakso, Martine Michou, and Pierre Nabat
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-835, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-835, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The 2014–15 Holuhraun eruption created a vast aerosol plume that acted as a natural experiment to assess how well climate models capture changes in cloud properties due to increased aerosol. We find that the models accurately represent the observed shift to smaller, more numerous cloud droplets. However, the models diverge in their aerosol induced changes to large-scale cloud properties, particularly cloud liquid water content. Our study shows that Holuhraun had a cooling effect on the Earth.
Xuemei Wang, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Daniel P. Grosvenor, and Hamish Gordon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-132, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-132, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Anthropogenic emissions can influence aerosol particle number concentrations via new particle formation. Our model simulations predict around 10 % increase of the particle and cloud droplet number concentrations when doubling the emissions in the Manaus region in the Amazonian wet season. However, the corresponding changes in cloud water and rain mass are around 4 %. Such weak response implied that this convective environment is not sensitive to the localised anthropogenic emission changes here.
Barbara Ervens, Ken S. Carslaw, Thomas Koop, and Ulrich Pöschl
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-419, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-419, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Over the past two decades, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) has demonstrated the success, viability and benefits of interactive open access (OA) publishing with public peer review in its journals, its publishing platform EGUsphere and virtual compilations. The article summarizes the evolution of the EGU/Copernicus publications and of OA publishing with interactive public peer review at large by placing the EGU/Copernicus publications in the context of current and future global open science.
Xinyue Shao, Minghuai Wang, Xinyi Dong, Yaman Liu, Stephen R. Arnold, Leighton A. Regayre, Duseong S. Jo, Wenxiang Shen, Hao Wang, Man Yue, Jingyi Wang, Wenxin Zhang, and Ken S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4135, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4135, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study uses a global chemistry-climate model to investigate how new particle formation (NPF) from highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) contributes to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in both preindustrial (PI) and present-day (PD) environments, and its impact on aerosol indirect radiative forcing. The findings highlight the crucial role of biogenic emissions in climate change, providing new insights for carbon-neutral scenarios and enhancing understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions.
Xinyi Huang, Paul R. Field, Benjamin J. Murray, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Floortje van den Heuvel, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4070, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4070, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Cold-air outbreak (CAO) clouds play a vital role in climate prediction. This study explores the responses of CAO clouds to aerosols and ice production under different environmental conditions. We found that CAO cloud responses vary with cloud temperature and are strongly controlled by the liquid-ice partitioning in these clouds, suggesting the importance of good representations of cloud microphysics properties to predict the behaviours of CAO clouds in a warming climate.
Ross J. Herbert, Alberto Sanchez-Marroquin, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Kirsty J. Pringle, Stephen R. Arnold, Benjamin J. Murray, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 291–325, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-291-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol particles that help form ice in clouds vary in number and type around the world and with time. However, in many weather and climate models cloud ice is not linked to aerosols that are known to nucleate ice. Here we report the first steps towards representing ice-nucleating particles within the UK Earth System Model. We conclude that in addition to ice nucleation by sea spray and mineral components of soil dust, we also need to represent ice nucleation by the organic components of soils.
Erin N. Raif, Sarah L. Barr, Mark D. Tarn, James B. McQuaid, Martin I. Daily, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Keith N. Bower, Paul R. Field, Kenneth S. Carslaw, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 14045–14072, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14045-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-14045-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Ice-nucleating particles (INPs) allow ice to form in clouds at temperatures warmer than −35°C. We measured INP concentrations over the Norwegian and Barents seas in weather events where cold air is ejected from the Arctic. These concentrations were among the highest measured in the Arctic. It is likely that the INPs were transported to the Arctic from distant regions. These results show it is important to consider hemispheric-scale INP processes to understand INP concentrations in the Arctic.
Masaru Yoshioka, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Ben B. B. Booth, Colin P. Morice, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13681–13692, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13681-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13681-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
A 2020 regulation has reduced sulfur emissions from shipping by about 80 %, leading to a decrease in atmospheric aerosols that have a cooling effect primarily by affecting cloud properties and amounts. Our climate model simulations predict a global temperature increase of 0.04 K over the next 3 decades as a result, which could contribute to surpassing the Paris Agreement's 1.5 °C target. Reduced aerosols may have also contributed to the recent temperature spikes.
Benjamin M. Sanderson, Ben B. B. Booth, John Dunne, Veronika Eyring, Rosie A. Fisher, Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew J. Gidden, Tomohiro Hajima, Chris D. Jones, Colin G. Jones, Andrew King, Charles D. Koven, David M. Lawrence, Jason Lowe, Nadine Mengis, Glen P. Peters, Joeri Rogelj, Chris Smith, Abigail C. Snyder, Isla R. Simpson, Abigail L. S. Swann, Claudia Tebaldi, Tatiana Ilyina, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Roland Séférian, Bjørn H. Samset, Detlef van Vuuren, and Sönke Zaehle
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8141–8172, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8141-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8141-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We discuss how, in order to provide more relevant guidance for climate policy, coordinated climate experiments should adopt a greater focus on simulations where Earth system models are provided with carbon emissions from fossil fuels together with land use change instructions, rather than past approaches that have largely focused on experiments with prescribed atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. We discuss how these goals might be achieved in coordinated climate modeling experiments.
Colin G. Jones, Fanny Adloff, Ben B. B. Booth, Peter M. Cox, Veronika Eyring, Pierre Friedlingstein, Katja Frieler, Helene T. Hewitt, Hazel A. Jeffery, Sylvie Joussaume, Torben Koenigk, Bryan N. Lawrence, Eleanor O'Rourke, Malcolm J. Roberts, Benjamin M. Sanderson, Roland Séférian, Samuel Somot, Pier Luigi Vidale, Detlef van Vuuren, Mario Acosta, Mats Bentsen, Raffaele Bernardello, Richard Betts, Ed Blockley, Julien Boé, Tom Bracegirdle, Pascale Braconnot, Victor Brovkin, Carlo Buontempo, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Markus Donat, Italo Epicoco, Pete Falloon, Sandro Fiore, Thomas Frölicher, Neven S. Fučkar, Matthew J. Gidden, Helge F. Goessling, Rune Grand Graversen, Silvio Gualdi, José M. Gutiérrez, Tatiana Ilyina, Daniela Jacob, Chris D. Jones, Martin Juckes, Elizabeth Kendon, Erik Kjellström, Reto Knutti, Jason Lowe, Matthew Mizielinski, Paola Nassisi, Michael Obersteiner, Pierre Regnier, Romain Roehrig, David Salas y Mélia, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Michael Schulz, Enrico Scoccimarro, Laurent Terray, Hannes Thiemann, Richard A. Wood, Shuting Yang, and Sönke Zaehle
Earth Syst. Dynam., 15, 1319–1351, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1319-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-1319-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We propose a number of priority areas for the international climate research community to address over the coming decade. Advances in these areas will both increase our understanding of past and future Earth system change, including the societal and environmental impacts of this change, and deliver significantly improved scientific support to international climate policy, such as future IPCC assessments and the UNFCCC Global Stocktake.
Xinyue Shao, Minghuai Wang, Xinyi Dong, Yaman Liu, Wenxiang Shen, Stephen R. Arnold, Leighton A. Regayre, Meinrat O. Andreae, Mira L. Pöhlker, Duseong S. Jo, Man Yue, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11365–11389, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11365-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11365-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs) play an important role in atmospheric new particle formation (NPF). By semi-explicitly coupling the chemical mechanism of HOMs and a comprehensive nucleation scheme in a global climate model, the updated model shows better agreement with measurements of nucleation rate, growth rate, and NPF event frequency. Our results reveal that HOM-driven NPF leads to a considerable increase in particle and cloud condensation nuclei burden globally.
Amy H. Peace, Ying Chen, George Jordan, Daniel G. Partridge, Florent Malavelle, Eliza Duncan, and Jim M. Haywood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9533–9553, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9533-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9533-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Natural aerosols from volcanic eruptions can help us understand how anthropogenic aerosols modify climate. We use observations and model simulations of the 2014–2015 Holuhraun eruption plume to examine aerosol–cloud interactions in September 2014. We find a shift to clouds with smaller, more numerous cloud droplets in the first 2 weeks of the eruption. In the third week, the background meteorology and previous conditions experienced by air masses modulate the aerosol perturbation to clouds.
Jonathan Tinker, Matthew D. Palmer, Benjamin J. Harrison, Enda O'Dea, David M. H. Sexton, Kuniko Yamazaki, and John W. Rostron
Ocean Sci., 20, 835–885, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-20-835-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-20-835-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The northwest European shelf (NWS) seas are economically and environmentally important but poorly represented in global climate models (GCMs). We combine use of a shelf sea model with GCM output to provide improved 21st century projections of the NWS. We project a NWS warming of 3.11 °C and freshening of −1.01, and we provide uncertainty estimates. We calculate the climate signal emergence and consider warming levels. We have released our data for the UK's Climate Change Risk Assessment.
Jiwoo Lee, Peter J. Gleckler, Min-Seop Ahn, Ana Ordonez, Paul A. Ullrich, Kenneth R. Sperber, Karl E. Taylor, Yann Y. Planton, Eric Guilyardi, Paul Durack, Celine Bonfils, Mark D. Zelinka, Li-Wei Chao, Bo Dong, Charles Doutriaux, Chengzhu Zhang, Tom Vo, Jason Boutte, Michael F. Wehner, Angeline G. Pendergrass, Daehyun Kim, Zeyu Xue, Andrew T. Wittenberg, and John Krasting
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3919–3948, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3919-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3919-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We introduce an open-source software, the PCMDI Metrics Package (PMP), developed for a comprehensive comparison of Earth system models (ESMs) with real-world observations. Using diverse metrics evaluating climatology, variability, and extremes simulated in thousands of simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), PMP aids in benchmarking model improvements across generations. PMP also enables efficient tracking of performance evolutions during ESM developments.
George Jordan, Florent Malavelle, Ying Chen, Amy Peace, Eliza Duncan, Daniel G. Partridge, Paul Kim, Duncan Watson-Parris, Toshihiko Takemura, David Neubauer, Gunnar Myhre, Ragnhild Skeie, Anton Laakso, and James Haywood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 1939–1960, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1939-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1939-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The 2014–15 Holuhraun eruption caused a huge aerosol plume in an otherwise unpolluted region, providing a chance to study how aerosol alters cloud properties. This two-part study uses observations and models to quantify this relationship’s impact on the Earth’s energy budget. Part 1 suggests the models capture the observed spatial and chemical evolution of the plume, yet no model plume is exact. Understanding these differences is key for Part 2, where changes to cloud properties are explored.
Rolf Müller, Ulrich Pöschl, Thomas Koop, Thomas Peter, and Ken Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15445–15453, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15445-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15445-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Paul J. Crutzen was a pioneer in atmospheric sciences and a kind-hearted, humorous person with empathy for the private lives of his colleagues and students. He made fundamental scientific contributions to a wide range of scientific topics in all parts of the atmosphere. Paul was among the founders of the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. His work will continue to be a guide for generations of scientists and environmental policymakers to come.
Hamza Ahsan, Hailong Wang, Jingbo Wu, Mingxuan Wu, Steven J. Smith, Susanne Bauer, Harrison Suchyta, Dirk Olivié, Gunnar Myhre, Hitoshi Matsui, Huisheng Bian, Jean-François Lamarque, Ken Carslaw, Larry Horowitz, Leighton Regayre, Mian Chin, Michael Schulz, Ragnhild Bieltvedt Skeie, Toshihiko Takemura, and Vaishali Naik
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 14779–14799, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14779-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-14779-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We examine the impact of the assumed effective height of SO2 injection, SO2 and BC emission seasonality, and the assumed fraction of SO2 emissions injected as SO4 on climate and chemistry model results. We find that the SO2 injection height has a large impact on surface SO2 concentrations and, in some models, radiative flux. These assumptions are a
hiddensource of inter-model variability and may be leading to bias in some climate model results.
Leighton A. Regayre, Lucia Deaconu, Daniel P. Grosvenor, David M. H. Sexton, Christopher Symonds, Tom Langton, Duncan Watson-Paris, Jane P. Mulcahy, Kirsty J. Pringle, Mark Richardson, Jill S. Johnson, John W. Rostron, Hamish Gordon, Grenville Lister, Philip Stier, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 8749–8768, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8749-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-8749-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosol forcing of Earth’s energy balance has persisted as a major cause of uncertainty in climate simulations over generations of climate model development. We show that structural deficiencies in a climate model are exposed by comprehensively exploring parametric uncertainty and that these deficiencies limit how much the model uncertainty can be reduced through observational constraint. This provides a future pathway towards building models with greater physical realism and lower uncertainty.
Nina Raoult, Tim Jupp, Ben Booth, and Peter Cox
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 723–731, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-723-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-723-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Climate models are used to predict the impact of climate change. However, poorly constrained parameters used in the physics of the models mean that we simulate a large spread of possible future outcomes. We can use real-world observations to reduce the uncertainty of parameter values, but we do not have observations to reduce the spread of possible future outcomes directly. We present a method for translating the reduction in parameter uncertainty into a reduction in possible model projections.
Daniel P. Grosvenor and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6743–6773, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6743-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6743-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We determine what causes long-term trends in short-wave (SW) radiative fluxes in two climate models. A positive trend occurs between 1850 and 1970 (increasing SW reflection) and a negative trend between 1970 and 2014; the pre-1970 positive trend is mainly driven by an increase in cloud droplet number concentrations due to increases in aerosol, and the 1970–2014 trend is driven by a decrease in cloud fraction, which we attribute to changes in clouds caused by greenhouse gas-induced warming.
Ernesto Reyes-Villegas, Douglas Lowe, Jill S. Johnson, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Eoghan Darbyshire, Michael Flynn, James D. Allan, Hugh Coe, Ying Chen, Oliver Wild, Scott Archer-Nicholls, Alex Archibald, Siddhartha Singh, Manish Shrivastava, Rahul A. Zaveri, Vikas Singh, Gufran Beig, Ranjeet Sokhi, and Gordon McFiggans
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5763–5782, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5763-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5763-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Organic aerosols (OAs), their sources and their processes remain poorly understood. The volatility basis set (VBS) approach, implemented in air quality models such as WRF-Chem, can be a useful tool to describe primary OA (POA) production and aging. However, the main disadvantage is its complexity. We used a Gaussian process simulator to reproduce model results and to estimate the sources of model uncertainty. We do this by comparing the outputs with OA observations made at Delhi, India, in 2018.
Tamzin E. Palmer, Carol F. McSweeney, Ben B. B. Booth, Matthew D. K. Priestley, Paolo Davini, Lukas Brunner, Leonard Borchert, and Matthew B. Menary
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 457–483, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-457-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-457-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We carry out an assessment of an ensemble of general climate models (CMIP6) based on the ability of the models to represent the key physical processes that are important for representing European climate. Filtering the models with the assessment leads to more models with less global warming being removed, and this shifts the lower part of the projected temperature range towards greater warming. This is in contrast to the affect of weighting the ensemble using global temperature trends.
Xuemei Wang, Hamish Gordon, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Meinrat O. Andreae, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4431–4461, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4431-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4431-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
New particle formation in the upper troposphere is important for the global boundary layer aerosol population, and they can be transported downward in Amazonia. We use a global and a regional model to quantify the number of aerosols that are formed at high altitude and transported downward in a 1000 km region. We find that the majority of the aerosols are from outside the region. This suggests that the 1000 km region is unlikely to be a
closed loopfor aerosol formation, transport and growth.
Ruth Price, Andrea Baccarini, Julia Schmale, Paul Zieger, Ian M. Brooks, Paul Field, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 2927–2961, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2927-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2927-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Arctic clouds can control how much energy is absorbed by the surface or reflected back to space. Using a computer model of the atmosphere we investigated the formation of atmospheric particles that allow cloud droplets to form. We found that particles formed aloft are transported to the lowest part of the Arctic atmosphere and that this is a key source of particles. Our results have implications for the way Arctic clouds will behave in the future as climate change continues to impact the region.
Leighton A. Regayre, Lucia Deaconu, Daniel P. Grosvenor, David Sexton, Christopher C. Symonds, Tom Langton, Duncan Watson-Paris, Jane P. Mulcahy, Kirsty J. Pringle, Mark Richardson, Jill S. Johnson, John Rostron, Hamish Gordon, Grenville Lister, Philip Stier, and Ken S. Carslaw
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1330, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1330, 2022
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
We show that potential structural deficiencies in a climate model can be exposed by comprehensively exploring its parametric uncertainty, and that these deficiencies limit how much the model uncertainty can be reduced through observational constraint. Combined consideration of parametric and structural uncertainties provides a future pathway towards building models that have greater physical realism and lower uncertainty.
Ville Leinonen, Harri Kokkola, Taina Yli-Juuti, Tero Mielonen, Thomas Kühn, Tuomo Nieminen, Simo Heikkinen, Tuuli Miinalainen, Tommi Bergman, Ken Carslaw, Stefano Decesari, Markus Fiebig, Tareq Hussein, Niku Kivekäs, Radovan Krejci, Markku Kulmala, Ari Leskinen, Andreas Massling, Nikos Mihalopoulos, Jane P. Mulcahy, Steffen M. Noe, Twan van Noije, Fiona M. O'Connor, Colin O'Dowd, Dirk Olivie, Jakob B. Pernov, Tuukka Petäjä, Øyvind Seland, Michael Schulz, Catherine E. Scott, Henrik Skov, Erik Swietlicki, Thomas Tuch, Alfred Wiedensohler, Annele Virtanen, and Santtu Mikkonen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12873–12905, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12873-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12873-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We provide the first extensive comparison of detailed aerosol size distribution trends between in situ observations from Europe and five different earth system models. We investigated aerosol modes (nucleation, Aitken, and accumulation) separately and were able to show the differences between measured and modeled trends and especially their seasonal patterns. The differences in model results are likely due to complex effects of several processes instead of certain specific model features.
Alexander D. Harrison, Daniel O'Sullivan, Michael P. Adams, Grace C. E. Porter, Edmund Blades, Cherise Brathwaite, Rebecca Chewitt-Lucas, Cassandra Gaston, Rachel Hawker, Ovid O. Krüger, Leslie Neve, Mira L. Pöhlker, Christopher Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, Alberto Sanchez-Marroquin, Andrea Sealy, Peter Sealy, Mark D. Tarn, Shanice Whitehall, James B. McQuaid, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Joseph M. Prospero, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 9663–9680, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9663-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9663-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The formation of ice in clouds fundamentally alters cloud properties; hence it is important we understand the special aerosol particles that can nucleate ice when immersed in supercooled cloud droplets. In this paper we show that African desert dust that has travelled across the Atlantic to the Caribbean nucleates ice much less well than we might have expected.
Shipra Jain, Ruth M. Doherty, David Sexton, Steven Turnock, Chaofan Li, Zixuan Jia, Zongbo Shi, and Lin Pei
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 7443–7460, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7443-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7443-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We provide a range of future projections of winter haze and clear conditions over the North China Plain (NCP) using multiple simulations from a climate model for the high-emission scenario (RCP8.5). The frequency of haze conducive weather is likely to increase whereas the frequency of clear weather is likely to decrease in future. The total number of hazy days for a given winter can be as much as ˜3.5 times higher than the number of clear days over the NCP.
Jie Zhang, Kalli Furtado, Steven T. Turnock, Jane P. Mulcahy, Laura J. Wilcox, Ben B. Booth, David Sexton, Tongwen Wu, Fang Zhang, and Qianxia Liu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 18609–18627, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-18609-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-18609-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The CMIP6 ESMs systematically underestimate TAS anomalies in the NH midlatitudes, especially from 1960 to 1990. The anomalous cooling is concurrent in time and space with anthropogenic SO2 emissions. The spurious drop in TAS is attributed to the overestimated aerosol concentrations. The aerosol forcing sensitivity cannot well explain the inter-model spread of PHC biases. And the cloud-amount term accounts for most of the inter-model spread in aerosol forcing sensitivity.
Rachel E. Hawker, Annette K. Miltenberger, Jill S. Johnson, Jonathan M. Wilkinson, Adrian A. Hill, Ben J. Shipway, Paul R. Field, Benjamin J. Murray, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17315–17343, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17315-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17315-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We find that ice-nucleating particles (INPs), aerosols that can initiate the freezing of cloud droplets, cause substantial changes to the properties of radiatively important convectively generated anvil cirrus. The number concentration of INPs had a large effect on ice crystal number concentration while the INP temperature dependence controlled ice crystal size and cloud fraction. The results indicate information on INP number and source is necessary for the representation of cloud glaciation.
Heather Guy, Ian M. Brooks, Ken S. Carslaw, Benjamin J. Murray, Von P. Walden, Matthew D. Shupe, Claire Pettersen, David D. Turner, Christopher J. Cox, William D. Neff, Ralf Bennartz, and Ryan R. Neely III
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 15351–15374, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15351-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-15351-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We present the first full year of surface aerosol number concentration measurements from the central Greenland Ice Sheet. Aerosol concentrations here have a distinct seasonal cycle from those at lower-altitude Arctic sites, which is driven by large-scale atmospheric circulation. Our results can be used to help understand the role aerosols might play in Greenland surface melt through the modification of cloud properties. This is crucial in a rapidly changing region where observations are sparse.
Mao Xiao, Christopher R. Hoyle, Lubna Dada, Dominik Stolzenburg, Andreas Kürten, Mingyi Wang, Houssni Lamkaddam, Olga Garmash, Bernhard Mentler, Ugo Molteni, Andrea Baccarini, Mario Simon, Xu-Cheng He, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Lauri R. Ahonen, Rima Baalbaki, Paulus S. Bauer, Lisa Beck, David Bell, Federico Bianchi, Sophia Brilke, Dexian Chen, Randall Chiu, António Dias, Jonathan Duplissy, Henning Finkenzeller, Hamish Gordon, Victoria Hofbauer, Changhyuk Kim, Theodore K. Koenig, Janne Lampilahti, Chuan Ping Lee, Zijun Li, Huajun Mai, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna E. Manninen, Ruby Marten, Serge Mathot, Roy L. Mauldin, Wei Nie, Antti Onnela, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Veronika Pospisilova, Lauriane L. J. Quéléver, Matti Rissanen, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, António Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Andrea C. Wagner, Robert Wagner, Yonghong Wang, Lena Weitz, Daniela Wimmer, Yusheng Wu, Chao Yan, Penglin Ye, Qing Ye, Qiaozhi Zha, Xueqin Zhou, Antonio Amorim, Ken Carslaw, Joachim Curtius, Armin Hansel, Rainer Volkamer, Paul M. Winkler, Richard C. Flagan, Markku Kulmala, Douglas R. Worsnop, Jasper Kirkby, Neil M. Donahue, Urs Baltensperger, Imad El Haddad, and Josef Dommen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14275–14291, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14275-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14275-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Experiments at CLOUD show that in polluted environments new particle formation (NPF) is largely driven by the formation of sulfuric acid–base clusters, stabilized by amines, high ammonia concentrations or lower temperatures. While oxidation products of aromatics can nucleate, they play a minor role in urban NPF. Our experiments span 4 orders of magnitude variation of observed NPF rates in ambient conditions. We provide a framework based on NPF and growth rates to interpret ambient observations.
Benjamin M. Sanderson, Angeline G. Pendergrass, Charles D. Koven, Florent Brient, Ben B. B. Booth, Rosie A. Fisher, and Reto Knutti
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 899–918, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-899-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-899-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Emergent constraints promise a pathway to the reduction in climate projection uncertainties by exploiting ensemble relationships between observable quantities and unknown climate response parameters. This study considers the robustness of these relationships in light of biases and common simplifications that may be present in the original ensemble of climate simulations. We propose a classification scheme for constraints and a number of practical case studies.
Ramiro Checa-Garcia, Yves Balkanski, Samuel Albani, Tommi Bergman, Ken Carslaw, Anne Cozic, Chris Dearden, Beatrice Marticorena, Martine Michou, Twan van Noije, Pierre Nabat, Fiona M. O'Connor, Dirk Olivié, Joseph M. Prospero, Philippe Le Sager, Michael Schulz, and Catherine Scott
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10295–10335, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10295-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10295-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Thousands of tons of dust are emitted into the atmosphere every year, producing important impacts on the Earth system. However, current global climate models are not yet able to reproduce dust emissions, transport and depositions with the desirable accuracy. Our study analyses five different Earth system models to report aspects to be improved to reproduce better available observations, increase the consistency between models and therefore decrease the current uncertainties.
Rachel E. Hawker, Annette K. Miltenberger, Jonathan M. Wilkinson, Adrian A. Hill, Ben J. Shipway, Zhiqiang Cui, Richard J. Cotton, Ken S. Carslaw, Paul R. Field, and Benjamin J. Murray
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 5439–5461, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5439-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5439-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The impact of aerosols on clouds is a large source of uncertainty for future climate projections. Our results show that the radiative properties of a complex convective cloud field in the Saharan outflow region are sensitive to the temperature dependence of ice-nucleating particle concentrations. This means that differences in the aerosol source or composition, for the same aerosol size distribution, can cause differences in the outgoing radiation from regions dominated by tropical convection.
Ananth Ranjithkumar, Hamish Gordon, Christina Williamson, Andrew Rollins, Kirsty Pringle, Agnieszka Kupc, Nathan Luke Abraham, Charles Brock, and Ken Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 4979–5014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4979-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4979-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The effect aerosols have on climate can be better understood by studying their vertical and spatial distribution throughout the atmosphere. We use observation data from the ATom campaign and evaluate the vertical profile of aerosol number concentration, sulfur dioxide and condensation sink using the UKESM (UK Earth System Model). We identify uncertainties in key atmospheric processes that help improve their theoretical representation in global climate models.
Kamalika Sengupta, Kirsty Pringle, Jill S. Johnson, Carly Reddington, Jo Browse, Catherine E. Scott, and Ken Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 2693–2723, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2693-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2693-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Global models consistently underestimate atmospheric secondary organic aerosol (SOA), which has significant climatic implications. We use a perturbed parameter model ensemble and ground-based observations to reduce the uncertainty in modelling SOA formation from oxidation of volatile organic compounds. We identify plausible parameter spaces for the yields of extremely low-volatility, low-volatility, and semi-volatile organic compounds based on model–observation match for three key model outputs.
Jim M. Haywood, Steven J. Abel, Paul A. Barrett, Nicolas Bellouin, Alan Blyth, Keith N. Bower, Melissa Brooks, Ken Carslaw, Haochi Che, Hugh Coe, Michael I. Cotterell, Ian Crawford, Zhiqiang Cui, Nicholas Davies, Beth Dingley, Paul Field, Paola Formenti, Hamish Gordon, Martin de Graaf, Ross Herbert, Ben Johnson, Anthony C. Jones, Justin M. Langridge, Florent Malavelle, Daniel G. Partridge, Fanny Peers, Jens Redemann, Philip Stier, Kate Szpek, Jonathan W. Taylor, Duncan Watson-Parris, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 1049–1084, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1049-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Every year, the seasonal cycle of biomass burning from agricultural practices in Africa creates a huge plume of smoke that travels many thousands of kilometres over the Atlantic Ocean. This study provides an overview of a measurement campaign called the cloud–aerosol–radiation interaction and forcing for year 2017 (CLARIFY-2017) and documents the rationale, deployment strategy, observations, and key results from the campaign which utilized the heavily equipped FAAM atmospheric research aircraft.
Benjamin J. Murray, Kenneth S. Carslaw, and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 665–679, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-665-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-665-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The balance between the amounts of ice and supercooled water in clouds over the world's oceans strongly influences how much these clouds can dampen or amplify global warming. Aerosol particles which catalyse ice formation can dramatically reduce the amount of supercooled water in clouds; hence we argue that we need a concerted effort to improve our understanding of these ice-nucleating particles if we are to improve our predictions of climate change.
Jane P. Mulcahy, Colin Johnson, Colin G. Jones, Adam C. Povey, Catherine E. Scott, Alistair Sellar, Steven T. Turnock, Matthew T. Woodhouse, Nathan Luke Abraham, Martin B. Andrews, Nicolas Bellouin, Jo Browse, Ken S. Carslaw, Mohit Dalvi, Gerd A. Folberth, Matthew Glover, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Catherine Hardacre, Richard Hill, Ben Johnson, Andy Jones, Zak Kipling, Graham Mann, James Mollard, Fiona M. O'Connor, Julien Palmiéri, Carly Reddington, Steven T. Rumbold, Mark Richardson, Nick A. J. Schutgens, Philip Stier, Marc Stringer, Yongming Tang, Jeremy Walton, Stephanie Woodward, and Andrew Yool
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 6383–6423, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6383-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-6383-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Aerosols are an important component of the Earth system. Here, we comprehensively document and evaluate the aerosol schemes as implemented in the physical and Earth system models, HadGEM3-GC3.1 and UKESM1. This study provides a useful characterisation of the aerosol climatology in both models, facilitating the understanding of the numerous aerosol–climate interaction studies that will be conducted for CMIP6 and beyond.
Daniel P. Grosvenor and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15681–15724, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15681-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15681-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Particles arising from human activity interact with clouds and affect how much of the Sun's energy is reflected away. Lack of understanding about how to represent this in models leads to large uncertainties in climate predictions. We quantify cloud responses to particles in the latest UK Met Office climate model over the North Atlantic Ocean, showing that, in contrast to suggestions elsewhere, increases in cloud coverage and thickness are important over large areas.
Sandip S. Dhomse, Graham W. Mann, Juan Carlos Antuña Marrero, Sarah E. Shallcross, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Lauren Marshall, N. Luke Abraham, and Colin E. Johnson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 13627–13654, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13627-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13627-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
We confirm downward adjustment of SO2 emission to simulate the Pinatubo aerosol cloud with aerosol microphysics models. Similar adjustment is also needed to simulate the El Chichón and Agung volcanic cloud, indicating potential missing removal or vertical redistribution process in models. Important inhomogeneities in the CMIP6 forcing datasets after Agung and El Chichón eruptions are difficult to reconcile. Quasi-biennial oscillation plays an important role in modifying stratospheric warming.
Hamish Gordon, Paul R. Field, Steven J. Abel, Paul Barrett, Keith Bower, Ian Crawford, Zhiqiang Cui, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Adrian A. Hill, Jonathan Taylor, Jonathan Wilkinson, Huihui Wu, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10997–11024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10997-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10997-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The Met Office's Unified Model is widely used both for weather forecasting and climate prediction. We present the first version of the model in which both aerosol and cloud particle mass and number concentrations are allowed to evolve separately and independently, which is important for studying how aerosols affect weather and climate. We test the model against aircraft observations near Ascension Island in the Atlantic, focusing on how aerosols can "activate" to become cloud droplets.
Leighton A. Regayre, Julia Schmale, Jill S. Johnson, Christian Tatzelt, Andrea Baccarini, Silvia Henning, Masaru Yoshioka, Frank Stratmann, Martin Gysel-Beer, Daniel P. Grosvenor, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10063–10072, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10063-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10063-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
The amount of energy reflected back into space because of man-made particles is highly uncertain. Processes related to naturally occurring particles cause most of the uncertainty, but these processes are poorly constrained by present-day measurements. We show that measurements over the Southern Ocean, far from pollution sources, efficiently reduce climate model uncertainties. Our results pave the way to designing experiments and measurement campaigns that reduce this uncertainty even further.
Jill S. Johnson, Leighton A. Regayre, Masaru Yoshioka, Kirsty J. Pringle, Steven T. Turnock, Jo Browse, David M. H. Sexton, John W. Rostron, Nick A. J. Schutgens, Daniel G. Partridge, Dantong Liu, James D. Allan, Hugh Coe, Aijun Ding, David D. Cohen, Armand Atanacio, Ville Vakkari, Eija Asmi, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9491–9524, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9491-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9491-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
We use over 9000 monthly aggregated grid-box measurements of aerosol to constrain the uncertainty in the HadGEM3-UKCA climate model. Measurements of AOD, PM2.5, particle number concentrations, sulfate and organic mass concentrations are compared to 1 million
variantsof the model using an implausibility metric. Despite many compensating effects in the model, the procedure constrains the probability distributions of many parameters, and direct radiative forcing uncertainty is reduced by 34 %.
Nicolas Bellouin, Will Davies, Keith P. Shine, Johannes Quaas, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Piers M. Forster, Chris Smith, Lindsay Lee, Leighton Regayre, Guy Brasseur, Natalia Sudarchikova, Idir Bouarar, Olivier Boucher, and Gunnar Myhre
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 1649–1677, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1649-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1649-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Quantifying the imbalance in the Earth's energy budget caused by human activities is important to understand and predict climate changes. This study presents new estimates of the imbalance caused by changes in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and particles of pollution. Over the period 2003–2017, the overall imbalance has been positive, indicating that the climate system has gained energy and will warm further.
Dominik Stolzenburg, Mario Simon, Ananth Ranjithkumar, Andreas Kürten, Katrianne Lehtipalo, Hamish Gordon, Sebastian Ehrhart, Henning Finkenzeller, Lukas Pichelstorfer, Tuomo Nieminen, Xu-Cheng He, Sophia Brilke, Mao Xiao, António Amorim, Rima Baalbaki, Andrea Baccarini, Lisa Beck, Steffen Bräkling, Lucía Caudillo Murillo, Dexian Chen, Biwu Chu, Lubna Dada, António Dias, Josef Dommen, Jonathan Duplissy, Imad El Haddad, Lukas Fischer, Loic Gonzalez Carracedo, Martin Heinritzi, Changhyuk Kim, Theodore K. Koenig, Weimeng Kong, Houssni Lamkaddam, Chuan Ping Lee, Markus Leiminger, Zijun Li, Vladimir Makhmutov, Hanna E. Manninen, Guillaume Marie, Ruby Marten, Tatjana Müller, Wei Nie, Eva Partoll, Tuukka Petäjä, Joschka Pfeifer, Maxim Philippov, Matti P. Rissanen, Birte Rörup, Siegfried Schobesberger, Simone Schuchmann, Jiali Shen, Mikko Sipilä, Gerhard Steiner, Yuri Stozhkov, Christian Tauber, Yee Jun Tham, António Tomé, Miguel Vazquez-Pufleau, Andrea C. Wagner, Mingyi Wang, Yonghong Wang, Stefan K. Weber, Daniela Wimmer, Peter J. Wlasits, Yusheng Wu, Qing Ye, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, Urs Baltensperger, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Joachim Curtius, Neil M. Donahue, Richard C. Flagan, Armin Hansel, Markku Kulmala, Jos Lelieveld, Rainer Volkamer, Jasper Kirkby, and Paul M. Winkler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 7359–7372, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7359-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-7359-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Sulfuric acid is a major atmospheric vapour for aerosol formation. If new particles grow fast enough, they can act as cloud droplet seeds or affect air quality. In a controlled laboratory set-up, we demonstrate that van der Waals forces enhance growth from sulfuric acid. We disentangle the effects of ammonia, ions and particle hydration, presenting a complete picture of sulfuric acid growth from molecular clusters onwards. In a climate model, we show its influence on the global aerosol budget.
Doug McNeall, Jonny Williams, Richard Betts, Ben Booth, Peter Challenor, Peter Good, and Andy Wiltshire
Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 2487–2509, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2487-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-2487-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In the climate model FAMOUS, matching the modelled Amazon rainforest to observations required different land surface parameter settings than for other forests. It was unclear if this discrepancy was due to a bias in the modelled climate or an error in the land surface component of the model. Correcting the climate of the model with a statistical model corrects the simulation of the Amazon forest, suggesting that the land surface component of the model is not the source of the discrepancy.
Constanze Wellmann, Andrew I. Barrett, Jill S. Johnson, Michael Kunz, Bernhard Vogel, Ken S. Carslaw, and Corinna Hoose
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 2201–2219, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2201-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2201-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Severe hailstorms may cause damage to buildings and crops. Thus, the forecast of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models should be as reliable as possible.
Using statistical emulation, we identify those model input parameters describing environmental conditions and cloud microphysics which lead to large uncertainties in the prediction of deep convection. We find that the impact of the input parameters on the uncertainty depends on the considered output variable.
Duncan Watson-Parris, Nick Schutgens, Carly Reddington, Kirsty J. Pringle, Dantong Liu, James D. Allan, Hugh Coe, Ken S. Carslaw, and Philip Stier
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 11765–11790, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-11765-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-11765-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The vertical distribution of aerosol in the atmosphere affects its ability to act as cloud condensation nuclei and changes the amount of sunlight it absorbs or reflects. Common global measurements of aerosol provide no information about this vertical distribution. Using a global collection of in situ aircraft measurements to compare with an aerosol–climate model (ECHAM-HAM), we explore the key processes controlling this distribution and find that wet removal plays a key role.
Franziska Glassmeier, Fabian Hoffmann, Jill S. Johnson, Takanobu Yamaguchi, Ken S. Carslaw, and Graham Feingold
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 10191–10203, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-10191-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-10191-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The climatic relevance of aerosol–cloud interactions depends on the sensitivity of the radiative effect of clouds to certain cloud properties. We derive the dependence of cloud fraction, cloud albedo, and the relative cloud radiative effect on the number of cloud droplets and on liquid water path from a large set of detailed simulations of stratocumulus clouds.
George S. Fanourgakis, Maria Kanakidou, Athanasios Nenes, Susanne E. Bauer, Tommi Bergman, Ken S. Carslaw, Alf Grini, Douglas S. Hamilton, Jill S. Johnson, Vlassis A. Karydis, Alf Kirkevåg, John K. Kodros, Ulrike Lohmann, Gan Luo, Risto Makkonen, Hitoshi Matsui, David Neubauer, Jeffrey R. Pierce, Julia Schmale, Philip Stier, Kostas Tsigaridis, Twan van Noije, Hailong Wang, Duncan Watson-Parris, Daniel M. Westervelt, Yang Yang, Masaru Yoshioka, Nikos Daskalakis, Stefano Decesari, Martin Gysel-Beer, Nikos Kalivitis, Xiaohong Liu, Natalie M. Mahowald, Stelios Myriokefalitakis, Roland Schrödner, Maria Sfakianaki, Alexandra P. Tsimpidi, Mingxuan Wu, and Fangqun Yu
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 8591–8617, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8591-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-8591-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Effects of aerosols on clouds are important for climate studies but are among the largest uncertainties in climate projections. This study evaluates the skill of global models to simulate aerosol, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNCs). Model results show reduced spread in CDNC compared to CCN due to the negative correlation between the sensitivities of CDNC to aerosol number concentration (air pollution) and updraft velocity (atmospheric dynamics).
Stephanie Fiedler, Stefan Kinne, Wan Ting Katty Huang, Petri Räisänen, Declan O'Donnell, Nicolas Bellouin, Philip Stier, Joonas Merikanto, Twan van Noije, Risto Makkonen, and Ulrike Lohmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 6821–6841, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6821-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6821-2019, 2019
David Walters, Anthony J. Baran, Ian Boutle, Malcolm Brooks, Paul Earnshaw, John Edwards, Kalli Furtado, Peter Hill, Adrian Lock, James Manners, Cyril Morcrette, Jane Mulcahy, Claudio Sanchez, Chris Smith, Rachel Stratton, Warren Tennant, Lorenzo Tomassini, Kwinten Van Weverberg, Simon Vosper, Martin Willett, Jo Browse, Andrew Bushell, Kenneth Carslaw, Mohit Dalvi, Richard Essery, Nicola Gedney, Steven Hardiman, Ben Johnson, Colin Johnson, Andy Jones, Colin Jones, Graham Mann, Sean Milton, Heather Rumbold, Alistair Sellar, Masashi Ujiie, Michael Whitall, Keith Williams, and Mohamed Zerroukat
Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 1909–1963, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1909-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1909-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Global Atmosphere (GA) configurations of the Unified Model (UM) and Global Land (GL) configurations of JULES are developed for use in any global atmospheric modelling application. We describe a recent iteration of these configurations, GA7/GL7, which includes new aerosol and snow schemes and addresses the four critical errors identified in GA6. GA7/GL7 will underpin the UK's contributions to CMIP6, and hence their documentation is important.
Meng Si, Victoria E. Irish, Ryan H. Mason, Jesús Vergara-Temprado, Sarah J. Hanna, Luis A. Ladino, Jacqueline D. Yakobi-Hancock, Corinne L. Schiller, Jeremy J. B. Wentzell, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt, Ken S. Carslaw, Benjamin J. Murray, and Allan K. Bertram
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 15669–15685, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15669-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15669-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Using the concentrations of ice-nucleating particles (INPs) and total aerosol particles measured at three coastal marine sites, the ice-nucleating ability of aerosol particles on a per number basis and a per surface-area basis were determined as a function of size. The ice-nucleating ability was strongly dependent on size, with larger particles being more efficient. This type of information can help determine the sources of INPs and constrain the future modelling of INPs and mixed-phase clouds.
Hamish Gordon, Paul R. Field, Steven J. Abel, Mohit Dalvi, Daniel P. Grosvenor, Adrian A. Hill, Ben T. Johnson, Annette K. Miltenberger, Masaru Yoshioka, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 15261–15289, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15261-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15261-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Smoke from African fires is frequently transported across the Atlantic Ocean, where it interacts with clouds. We simulate the interaction of the smoke with the clouds, and the consequences of this for the solar radiation the clouds reflect. The simulations use a new regional configuration of the UK Met Office climate model. Our simulations indicate that the properties of the clouds, in particular their height and reflectivity, and the fractional cloud cover, are strongly affected by the smoke.
Jill S. Johnson, Leighton A. Regayre, Masaru Yoshioka, Kirsty J. Pringle, Lindsay A. Lee, David M. H. Sexton, John W. Rostron, Ben B. B. Booth, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 13031–13053, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-13031-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-13031-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
We estimate the uncertainty in an aerosol–climate model that has been tuned to match several common types of observations. We used a large set of model simulations and built emulators so that we could generate 4 million “variants” of our climate model. Even after using nine aerosol and cloud observations to constrain the model, the uncertainty remains large. We conclude that estimates of aerosol forcing from multi-model studies are likely to be more uncertain than currently estimated.
Robin G. Stevens, Katharina Loewe, Christopher Dearden, Antonios Dimitrelos, Anna Possner, Gesa K. Eirund, Tomi Raatikainen, Adrian A. Hill, Benjamin J. Shipway, Jonathan Wilkinson, Sami Romakkaniemi, Juha Tonttila, Ari Laaksonen, Hannele Korhonen, Paul Connolly, Ulrike Lohmann, Corinna Hoose, Annica M. L. Ekman, Ken S. Carslaw, and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 11041–11071, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11041-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11041-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
We perform a model intercomparison of summertime high Arctic clouds. Observed concentrations of aerosol particles necessary for cloud formation fell to extremely low values, coincident with a transition from cloudy to nearly cloud-free conditions. Previous analyses have suggested that at these low concentrations, the radiative properties of the clouds are determined primarily by these particle concentrations. The model results strongly support this hypothesis.
Leighton A. Regayre, Jill S. Johnson, Masaru Yoshioka, Kirsty J. Pringle, David M. H. Sexton, Ben B. B. Booth, Lindsay A. Lee, Nicolas Bellouin, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 9975–10006, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9975-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9975-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
We sample uncertainty in one climate model by perturbing aerosol and physical atmosphere parameters. Our uncertainty is comparable to multi-model studies. Atmospheric parameters cause most of the top-of-atmosphere flux uncertainty; uncertainty in aerosol forcing is mostly caused by aerosols: both are important. The strongest aerosol forcings are inconsistent with top-of-atmosphere flux observations. Better constraint requires observations that share causes of uncertainty with aerosol forcing.
Christopher J. Smith, Piers M. Forster, Myles Allen, Nicholas Leach, Richard J. Millar, Giovanni A. Passerello, and Leighton A. Regayre
Geosci. Model Dev., 11, 2273–2297, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2273-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-2273-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
FAIR v1.3 is a simple Python-based climate model emulator. It takes emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosol and ozone precursors to calculate radiative forcing and temperature change. It includes a simple representation of carbon cycle feedbacks due to temperature and accumulated carbon uptake. Large ensembles can be run with minimal computational expense for any user-specified emissions pathway. We produce such an ensemble using the RCP emissions datasets.
Lauren Marshall, Anja Schmidt, Matthew Toohey, Ken S. Carslaw, Graham W. Mann, Michael Sigl, Myriam Khodri, Claudia Timmreck, Davide Zanchettin, William T. Ball, Slimane Bekki, James S. A. Brooke, Sandip Dhomse, Colin Johnson, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Allegra N. LeGrande, Michael J. Mills, Ulrike Niemeier, James O. Pope, Virginie Poulain, Alan Robock, Eugene Rozanov, Andrea Stenke, Timofei Sukhodolov, Simone Tilmes, Kostas Tsigaridis, and Fiona Tummon
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 2307–2328, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2307-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2307-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
We use four global aerosol models to compare the simulated sulfate deposition from the 1815 Mt. Tambora eruption to ice core records. Inter-model volcanic sulfate deposition differs considerably. Volcanic sulfate deposited on polar ice sheets is used to estimate the atmospheric sulfate burden and subsequently radiative forcing of historic eruptions. Our results suggest that deriving such relationships from model simulations may be associated with greater uncertainties than previously thought.
Jesús Vergara-Temprado, Benjamin J. Murray, Theodore W. Wilson, Daniel O'Sullivan, Jo Browse, Kirsty J. Pringle, Karin Ardon-Dryer, Allan K. Bertram, Susannah M. Burrows, Darius Ceburnis, Paul J. DeMott, Ryan H. Mason, Colin D. O'Dowd, Matteo Rinaldi, and Ken S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 3637–3658, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3637-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3637-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
We quantify the importance in the atmosphere of different aerosol components to contribute to global ice-nucleating particles concentrations (INPs). The aim is to improve the way atmospheric cloud-ice processes are represented in climate models so they will be able to make better predictions in the future. We found that a kind of dust (K-feldspar), together with marine organic aerosols, can help to improve the representation of INPs and explain most of their observations.
Céline Planche, Graham W. Mann, Kenneth S. Carslaw, Mohit Dalvi, John H. Marsham, and Paul R. Field
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 3371–3384, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3371-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-3371-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
A convection-permitting limited area model with prognostic aerosol microphysics is applied to investigate how concentrations of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the marine boundary layer are affected by high-resolution dynamical and thermodynamic fields at sub-climate model scale. We gain new insight into the way primary sea-salt and secondary sulfate particles contribute to the overall CCN variance, and find a marked difference in the variability of super- and sub-micron CCN.
Doug McNeall, Jonny Williams, Ben Booth, Richard Betts, Peter Challenor, Andy Wiltshire, and David Sexton
Earth Syst. Dynam., 7, 917–935, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-917-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-917-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
We compare simulated with observed forests to constrain uncertain input parameters of the land surface component of a climate model.
We find that the model is unlikely to be able to simulate the Amazon and other major forests simultaneously at any one parameter set, suggesting a bias in the model's representation of the Amazon.
We find we cannot constrain parameters individually, but we can rule out large areas of joint parameter space.
François Benduhn, Graham W. Mann, Kirsty J. Pringle, David O. Topping, Gordon McFiggans, and Kenneth S. Carslaw
Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 3875–3906, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3875-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3875-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
We present a new mathematical formalism that serves to represent exchanges of inorganic matter between the atmosphere gas phase and the aerosol aqueous phase. In a global modelling framework, taking into account these processes may help represent many important features more accurately, such as the formation of cloud droplets or the radiative properties of the atmosphere. The formalism strives to keep an appropriate balance between accuracy and computation efficiency requirements.
Stefan C. Dekker, Margriet Groenendijk, Ben B. B. Booth, Chris Huntingford, and Peter M. Cox
Earth Syst. Dynam., 7, 525–533, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-525-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-525-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
Our analysis allows us to infer maps of changing plant water-use efficiency (WUE) for 1901–2010, using atmospheric observations of temperature, humidity and CO2. Our estimated increase in global WUE is consistent with the tree-ring and eddy covariance data, but much larger than the historical WUE increases simulated by Earth System Models (ESMs). We therefore conclude that the effects of increasing CO2 on plant WUE are significantly underestimated in the latest climate projections.
C. E. Scott, D. V. Spracklen, J. R. Pierce, I. Riipinen, S. D. D'Andrea, A. Rap, K. S. Carslaw, P. M. Forster, P. Artaxo, M. Kulmala, L. V. Rizzo, E. Swietlicki, G. W. Mann, and K. J. Pringle
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 12989–13001, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12989-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-12989-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
To understand the radiative effects of biogenic secondary organic aerosol (SOA) it is necessary to consider the manner in which it is distributed across the existing aerosol size distribution. We explore the importance of the approach taken by global-scale models to do this, when calculating the direct radiative effect (DRE) & first aerosol indirect effect (AIE) due to biogenic SOA. This choice has little effect on the DRE, but a substantial impact on the magnitude and even sign of the first AIE
S. T. Turnock, D. V. Spracklen, K. S. Carslaw, G. W. Mann, M. T. Woodhouse, P. M. Forster, J. Haywood, C. E. Johnson, M. Dalvi, N. Bellouin, and A. Sanchez-Lorenzo
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 9477–9500, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-9477-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-9477-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
We evaluate HadGEM3-UKCA over Europe for the period 1960-2009 against observations of aerosol mass and number, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and surface solar radiation (SSR). The model underestimates aerosol mass and number but is less biased if compared to AOD and SSR. Observed trends in aerosols are well simulated by the model and necessary for reproducing the observed increase in SSR since 1990. European all-sky top of atmosphere aerosol radiative forcing increased by > 3 Wm-2 from 1970 to 2009.
P. R. Halloran, B. B. B. Booth, C. D. Jones, F. H. Lambert, D. J. McNeall, I. J. Totterdell, and C. Völker
Biogeosciences, 12, 4497–4508, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4497-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-12-4497-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
The oceans currently take up around a quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by human activity. While stored in the ocean, this CO2 is not causing global warming. Here we explore high latitude North Atlantic CO2 uptake across a set of climate model simulations, and find that the models show a peak in ocean CO2 uptake around the middle of the century after which time CO2 uptake begins to decline. We identify the causes of this long-term change and interannual variability in the models.
S. Fuzzi, U. Baltensperger, K. Carslaw, S. Decesari, H. Denier van der Gon, M. C. Facchini, D. Fowler, I. Koren, B. Langford, U. Lohmann, E. Nemitz, S. Pandis, I. Riipinen, Y. Rudich, M. Schaap, J. G. Slowik, D. V. Spracklen, E. Vignati, M. Wild, M. Williams, and S. Gilardoni
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 8217–8299, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-8217-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-8217-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
Particulate matter (PM) constitutes one of the most challenging problems both for air quality and climate change policies. This paper reviews the most recent scientific results on the issue and the policy needs that have driven much of the increase in monitoring and mechanistic research over the last 2 decades. The synthesis reveals many new processes and developments in the science underpinning climate-PM interactions and the effects of PM on human health and the environment.
A. Franchin, S. Ehrhart, J. Leppä, T. Nieminen, S. Gagné, S. Schobesberger, D. Wimmer, J. Duplissy, F. Riccobono, E. M. Dunne, L. Rondo, A. Downard, F. Bianchi, A. Kupc, G. Tsagkogeorgas, K. Lehtipalo, H. E. Manninen, J. Almeida, A. Amorim, P. E. Wagner, A. Hansel, J. Kirkby, A. Kürten, N. M. Donahue, V. Makhmutov, S. Mathot, A. Metzger, T. Petäjä, R. Schnitzhofer, M. Sipilä, Y. Stozhkov, A. Tomé, V.-M. Kerminen, K. Carslaw, J. Curtius, U. Baltensperger, and M. Kulmala
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 7203–7216, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-7203-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-15-7203-2015, 2015
Short summary
Short summary
The ion-ion recombination coefficient was measured at different temperatures, relative humidities and concentrations of ozone and sulfur dioxide. The experiments were carried out using the CLOUD chamber at CERN.
We observed a strong dependency on temperature and on relative humidity, which has not been reported previously. No dependency of the ion-ion recombination coefficient on ozone concentration was observed and a weak variation with sulfur dioxide concentration was also observed.
S. S. Dhomse, K. M. Emmerson, G. W. Mann, N. Bellouin, K. S. Carslaw, M. P. Chipperfield, R. Hommel, N. L. Abraham, P. Telford, P. Braesicke, M. Dalvi, C. E. Johnson, F. O'Connor, O. Morgenstern, J. A. Pyle, T. Deshler, J. M. Zawodny, and L. W. Thomason
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 11221–11246, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-11221-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-11221-2014, 2014
K. Tsigaridis, N. Daskalakis, M. Kanakidou, P. J. Adams, P. Artaxo, R. Bahadur, Y. Balkanski, S. E. Bauer, N. Bellouin, A. Benedetti, T. Bergman, T. K. Berntsen, J. P. Beukes, H. Bian, K. S. Carslaw, M. Chin, G. Curci, T. Diehl, R. C. Easter, S. J. Ghan, S. L. Gong, A. Hodzic, C. R. Hoyle, T. Iversen, S. Jathar, J. L. Jimenez, J. W. Kaiser, A. Kirkevåg, D. Koch, H. Kokkola, Y. H Lee, G. Lin, X. Liu, G. Luo, X. Ma, G. W. Mann, N. Mihalopoulos, J.-J. Morcrette, J.-F. Müller, G. Myhre, S. Myriokefalitakis, N. L. Ng, D. O'Donnell, J. E. Penner, L. Pozzoli, K. J. Pringle, L. M. Russell, M. Schulz, J. Sciare, Ø. Seland, D. T. Shindell, S. Sillman, R. B. Skeie, D. Spracklen, T. Stavrakou, S. D. Steenrod, T. Takemura, P. Tiitta, S. Tilmes, H. Tost, T. van Noije, P. G. van Zyl, K. von Salzen, F. Yu, Z. Wang, Z. Wang, R. A. Zaveri, H. Zhang, K. Zhang, Q. Zhang, and X. Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 10845–10895, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-10845-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-10845-2014, 2014
J. Browse, K. S. Carslaw, G. W. Mann, C. E. Birch, S. R. Arnold, and C. Leck
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 7543–7557, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7543-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-7543-2014, 2014
G. W. Mann, K. S. Carslaw, C. L. Reddington, K. J. Pringle, M. Schulz, A. Asmi, D. V. Spracklen, D. A. Ridley, M. T. Woodhouse, L. A. Lee, K. Zhang, S. J. Ghan, R. C. Easter, X. Liu, P. Stier, Y. H. Lee, P. J. Adams, H. Tost, J. Lelieveld, S. E. Bauer, K. Tsigaridis, T. P. C. van Noije, A. Strunk, E. Vignati, N. Bellouin, M. Dalvi, C. E. Johnson, T. Bergman, H. Kokkola, K. von Salzen, F. Yu, G. Luo, A. Petzold, J. Heintzenberg, A. Clarke, J. A. Ogren, J. Gras, U. Baltensperger, U. Kaminski, S. G. Jennings, C. D. O'Dowd, R. M. Harrison, D. C. S. Beddows, M. Kulmala, Y. Viisanen, V. Ulevicius, N. Mihalopoulos, V. Zdimal, M. Fiebig, H.-C. Hansson, E. Swietlicki, and J. S. Henzing
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 4679–4713, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-4679-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-4679-2014, 2014
C. Jiao, M. G. Flanner, Y. Balkanski, S. E. Bauer, N. Bellouin, T. K. Berntsen, H. Bian, K. S. Carslaw, M. Chin, N. De Luca, T. Diehl, S. J. Ghan, T. Iversen, A. Kirkevåg, D. Koch, X. Liu, G. W. Mann, J. E. Penner, G. Pitari, M. Schulz, Ø. Seland, R. B. Skeie, S. D. Steenrod, P. Stier, T. Takemura, K. Tsigaridis, T. van Noije, Y. Yun, and K. Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 2399–2417, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-2399-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-2399-2014, 2014
C. E. Scott, A. Rap, D. V. Spracklen, P. M. Forster, K. S. Carslaw, G. W. Mann, K. J. Pringle, N. Kivekäs, M. Kulmala, H. Lihavainen, and P. Tunved
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 447–470, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-447-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-447-2014, 2014
L. A. Lee, K. J. Pringle, C. L. Reddington, G. W. Mann, P. Stier, D. V. Spracklen, J. R. Pierce, and K. S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 8879–8914, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-8879-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-8879-2013, 2013
C. L. Reddington, G. McMeeking, G. W. Mann, H. Coe, M. G. Frontoso, D. Liu, M. Flynn, D. V. Spracklen, and K. S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 4917–4939, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-4917-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-4917-2013, 2013
B. B. B. Booth, D. Bernie, D. McNeall, E. Hawkins, J. Caesar, C. Boulton, P. Friedlingstein, and D. M. H. Sexton
Earth Syst. Dynam., 4, 95–108, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-4-95-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-4-95-2013, 2013
N. Bellouin, G. W. Mann, M. T. Woodhouse, C. Johnson, K. S. Carslaw, and M. Dalvi
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 3027–3044, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-3027-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-3027-2013, 2013
M. T. Woodhouse, G. W. Mann, K. S. Carslaw, and O. Boucher
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 2723–2733, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-2723-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-13-2723-2013, 2013
J. H. T. Williams, R. S. Smith, P. J. Valdes, B. B. B. Booth, and A. Osprey
Geosci. Model Dev., 6, 141–160, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-6-141-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-6-141-2013, 2013
E. M. Dunne, L. A. Lee, C. L. Reddington, and K. S. Carslaw
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 11573–11587, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-11573-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-11573-2012, 2012
Related subject area
Earth system change: climate prediction
Past and future response of the North Atlantic warming hole to anthropogenic forcing
Performance-based sub-selection of CMIP6 models for impact assessments in Europe
Emergent constraints for the climate system as effective parameters of bulk differential equations
Ensemble forecast of an index of the Madden–Julian Oscillation using a stochastic weather generator based on circulation analogs
Reconstructions and predictions of the global carbon budget with an emission-driven Earth system model
PInc-PanTher estimates of Arctic permafrost soil carbon under the GeoMIP G6solar and G6sulfur experiments
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) predictability in equilibrated warmer climates
Investigation of the extreme wet–cold compound events changes between 2025–2049 and 1980–2004 using regional simulations in Greece
Constraining low-frequency variability in climate projections to predict climate on decadal to multi-decadal timescales – a poor man's initialized prediction system
Resilience of UK crop yields to compound climate change
A non-stationary extreme-value approach for climate projection ensembles: application to snow loads in the French Alps
Atmospheric regional climate projections for the Baltic Sea region until 2100
Balanced estimate and uncertainty assessment of European climate change using the large EURO-CORDEX regional climate model ensemble
Extreme metrics from large ensembles: investigating the effects of ensemble size on their estimates
Reduced-complexity model for the impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on future glacial cycles
Is time a variable like the others in multivariate statistical downscaling and bias correction?
Trivial improvements in predictive skill due to direct reconstruction of the global carbon cycle
Abrupt climate change as a rate-dependent cascading tipping point
Bayesian estimation of Earth's climate sensitivity and transient climate response from observational warming and heat content datasets
Comparison of CMIP6 historical climate simulations and future projected warming to an empirical model of global climate
Assessment of a full-field initialized decadal climate prediction system with the CMIP6 version of EC-Earth
A new view of heat wave dynamics and predictability over the eastern Mediterranean
Emergent constraints on equilibrium climate sensitivity in CMIP5: do they hold for CMIP6?
Dating hiatuses: a statistical model of the recent slowdown in global warming and the next one
Calibrating large-ensemble European climate projections using observational data
Reduced global warming from CMIP6 projections when weighting models by performance and independence
Emergent constraints on transient climate response (TCR) and equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) from historical warming in CMIP5 and CMIP6 models
Multivariate bias corrections of climate simulations: which benefits for which losses?
Historical and future anthropogenic warming effects on droughts, fires and fire emissions of CO2 and PM2.5 in equatorial Asia when 2015-like El Niño events occur
The impact of regional climate model formulation and resolution on simulated precipitation in Africa
Bayesian deconstruction of climate sensitivity estimates using simple models: implicit priors and the confusion of the inverse
Intensification of the hydrological cycle expected in West Africa over the 21st century
Winter hydrometeorological extreme events modulated by large-scale atmospheric circulation in southern Ontario
Investigating ENSO and its teleconnections under climate change in an ensemble view – a new perspective
Human influence on European winter wind storms such as those of January 2018
September Arctic sea ice minimum prediction – a skillful new statistical approach
ESD Reviews: Model dependence in multi-model climate ensembles: weighting, sub-selection and out-of-sample testing
Predicting near-term variability in ocean carbon uptake
A mathematical approach to understanding emergent constraints
Seasonal prediction skill of East Asian summer monsoon in CMIP5 models
Assessing the impact of a future volcanic eruption on decadal predictions
Projections of East Asian summer monsoon change at global warming of 1.5 and 2 °C
Changes in extremely hot days under stabilized 1.5 and 2.0 °C global warming scenarios as simulated by the HAPPI multi-model ensemble
Regional scaling of annual mean precipitation and water availability with global temperature change
Irreversible ocean thermal expansion under carbon dioxide removal
Changes in tropical cyclones under stabilized 1.5 and 2.0 °C global warming scenarios as simulated by the Community Atmospheric Model under the HAPPI protocols
Selecting a climate model subset to optimise key ensemble properties
Return levels of temperature extremes in southern Pakistan
On the meaning of independence in climate science
Minimal change of thermal continentality in Slovakia within the period 1961–2013
Saïd Qasmi
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 685–695, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-685-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-685-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
A new statistical method combining climate models and observations confirms the anthropogenic role in the cooling of the North Atlantic warming hole. Aerosols increase sea surface temperature (SST), while greenhouse gases contribute to the cooling over the 1870–2020 period. The method is able to reduce model uncertainty in the SST projections by 65% in the short term and up to 50% in the long term, excluding previous unlikely temperature increase scenarios.
Tamzin E. Palmer, Carol F. McSweeney, Ben B. B. Booth, Matthew D. K. Priestley, Paolo Davini, Lukas Brunner, Leonard Borchert, and Matthew B. Menary
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 457–483, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-457-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-457-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We carry out an assessment of an ensemble of general climate models (CMIP6) based on the ability of the models to represent the key physical processes that are important for representing European climate. Filtering the models with the assessment leads to more models with less global warming being removed, and this shifts the lower part of the projected temperature range towards greater warming. This is in contrast to the affect of weighting the ensemble using global temperature trends.
Chris Huntingford, Peter M. Cox, Mark S. Williamson, Joseph J. Clarke, and Paul D. L. Ritchie
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 433–442, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-433-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-433-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Emergent constraints (ECs) reduce the spread of projections between climate models. ECs estimate changes to climate features impacting adaptation policy, and with this high profile, the method is under scrutiny. Asking
What is an EC?, we suggest they are often the discovery of parameters that characterise hidden large-scale equations that climate models solve implicitly. We present this conceptually via two examples. Our analysis implies possible new paths to link ECs and physical processes.
Meriem Krouma, Riccardo Silini, and Pascal Yiou
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 273–290, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-273-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-273-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We present a simple system to forecast the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO). We use atmospheric circulation as input to our system. We found a good-skill forecast of the MJO amplitude within 40 d using this methodology. Comparing our results with ECMWF and machine learning forecasts confirmed the good skill of our system.
Hongmei Li, Tatiana Ilyina, Tammas Loughran, Aaron Spring, and Julia Pongratz
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 101–119, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-101-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-101-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
For the first time, our decadal prediction system based on Max Planck Institute Earth System Model enables prognostic atmospheric CO2 with an interactive carbon cycle. The evolution of CO2 fluxes and atmospheric CO2 growth is reconstructed well by assimilating data products; retrospective predictions show high confidence in predicting changes in the next year. The Earth system predictions provide valuable inputs for understanding the global carbon cycle and informing climate-relevant policy.
Aobo Liu, John C. Moore, and Yating Chen
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 39–53, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-39-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-39-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Permafrost thaws and releases carbon (C) as the Arctic warms. Most earth system models (ESMs) have poor estimates of C stored now, so their future C losses are much lower than using the permafrost C model with climate inputs from six ESMs. Bias-corrected soil temperatures and plant productivity plus geoengineering lowering global temperatures from a no-mitigation baseline scenario to a moderate emissions level keep C in the soil worth about USD 0–70 (mean 20) trillion in climate damages by 2100.
Yiyu Zheng, Maria Rugenstein, Patrick Pieper, Goratz Beobide-Arsuaga, and Johanna Baehr
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1611–1623, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1611-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1611-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the dominant climatic phenomena in the equatorial Pacific. Understanding and predicting how ENSO might change in a warmer climate is both societally and scientifically important. We use 1000-year-long simulations from seven climate models to analyze ENSO in an idealized stable climate. We show that ENSO will be weaker and last shorter under the warming, while the skill of ENSO prediction will unlikely change.
Iason Markantonis, Diamando Vlachogiannis, Athanasios Sfetsos, and Ioannis Kioutsioukis
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1491–1504, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1491-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1491-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This work focuses on the study of daily wet–cold compound events in Greece in the period November–April. We firstly study the historic period 1980–2004 in which we validate projection models with observations. Then we compare the model results with future period 2025–2049 RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The aim of the study is to calculate the probability of the events and to locate the areas where those are higher and how the probabilities will change at the future.
Rashed Mahmood, Markus G. Donat, Pablo Ortega, Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, Carlos Delgado-Torres, Margarida Samsó, and Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1437–1450, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1437-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1437-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Near-term climate change projections are strongly affected by the uncertainty from internal climate variability. Here we present a novel approach to reduce such uncertainty by constraining decadal-scale variability in the projections using observations. The constrained ensembles show significant added value over the unconstrained ensemble in predicting global climate 2 decades ahead. We also show the applicability of regional constraints for attributing predictability to certain ocean regions.
Louise J. Slater, Chris Huntingford, Richard F. Pywell, John W. Redhead, and Elizabeth J. Kendon
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1377–1396, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1377-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1377-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
This work considers how wheat yields are affected by weather conditions during the three main wheat growth stages in the UK. Impacts are strongest in years with compound weather extremes across multiple growth stages. Future climate projections are beneficial for wheat yields, on average, but indicate a high risk of unseen weather conditions which farmers may struggle to adapt to and mitigate against.
Erwan Le Roux, Guillaume Evin, Nicolas Eckert, Juliette Blanchet, and Samuel Morin
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1059–1075, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1059-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1059-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Anticipating risks related to climate extremes is critical for societal adaptation to climate change. In this study, we propose a statistical method in order to estimate future climate extremes from past observations and an ensemble of climate change simulations. We apply this approach to snow load data available in the French Alps at 1500 m elevation and find that extreme snow load is projected to decrease by −2.9 kN m−2 (−50 %) between 1986–2005 and 2080–2099 for a high-emission scenario.
Ole Bøssing Christensen, Erik Kjellström, Christian Dieterich, Matthias Gröger, and Hans Eberhard Markus Meier
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 133–157, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-133-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-133-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The Baltic Sea Region is very sensitive to climate change, whose impacts could easily exacerbate biodiversity stress from society and eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. Therefore, there has been a focus on estimations of future climate change and its impacts in recent research. Models show a strong warming, in particular in the north in winter. Precipitation is projected to increase in the whole region apart from the south during summer. New results improve estimates of future climate change.
Guillaume Evin, Samuel Somot, and Benoit Hingray
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1543–1569, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1543-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1543-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This research paper proposes an assessment of mean climate change responses and related uncertainties over Europe for mean seasonal temperature and total seasonal precipitation. An advanced statistical approach is applied to a large ensemble of 87 high-resolution EURO-CORDEX projections. For the first time, we provide a comprehensive estimation of the relative contribution of GCMs and RCMs, RCP scenarios, and internal variability to the total variance of a very large ensemble.
Claudia Tebaldi, Kalyn Dorheim, Michael Wehner, and Ruby Leung
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1427–1501, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1427-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1427-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We address the question of how large an initial condition ensemble of climate model simulations should be if we are concerned with accurately projecting future changes in temperature and precipitation extremes. We find that for most cases (and both models considered), an ensemble of 20–25 members is sufficient for many extreme metrics, spatial scales and time horizons. This may leave computational resources to tackle other uncertainties in climate model simulations with our ensembles.
Stefanie Talento and Andrey Ganopolski
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1275–1293, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1275-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1275-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We propose a model for glacial cycles and produce an assessment of possible trajectories for the next 1 million years. Under natural conditions, the next glacial inception would most likely occur ∼50 kyr after present. We show that fossil-fuel CO2 releases can have an extremely long-term effect. Potentially achievable CO2 anthropogenic emissions during the next centuries will most likely provoke ice-free conditions in the Northern Hemisphere landmasses throughout the next half a million years.
Yoann Robin and Mathieu Vrac
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1253–1273, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1253-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1253-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We propose a new multivariate downscaling and bias correction approach called
time-shifted multivariate bias correction, which aims to correct temporal dependencies in addition to inter-variable and spatial ones. Our method is evaluated in a
perfect model experimentcontext where simulations are used as pseudo-observations. The results show a large reduction of the biases in the temporal properties, while inter-variable and spatial dependence structures are still correctly adjusted.
Aaron Spring, István Dunkl, Hongmei Li, Victor Brovkin, and Tatiana Ilyina
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1139–1167, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1139-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1139-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Numerical carbon cycle prediction models usually do not start from observed carbon states due to sparse observations. Instead, only physical climate is reconstructed, assuming that the carbon cycle follows indirectly. Here, we test in an idealized framework how well this indirect and direct reconstruction with perfect observations works. We find that indirect reconstruction works quite well and that improvements from the direct method are limited, strengthening the current indirect use.
Johannes Lohmann, Daniele Castellana, Peter D. Ditlevsen, and Henk A. Dijkstra
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 819–835, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-819-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-819-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Tipping of one climate subsystem could trigger a cascade of subsequent tipping points and even global-scale climate tipping. Sequential shifts of atmosphere, sea ice and ocean have been recorded in proxy archives of past climate change. Based on this we propose a conceptual model for abrupt climate changes of the last glacial. Here, rate-induced tipping enables tipping cascades in systems with relatively weak coupling. An early warning signal is proposed that may detect such a tipping.
Philip Goodwin and B. B. Cael
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 709–723, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-709-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-709-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Climate sensitivityis a key measure of how sensitive Earth's climate is to human release of greenhouse gasses, such as from fossil fuels. However, there is still uncertainty as to the value of climate sensitivity, in part because different climate feedbacks operate over multiple timescales. This study assesses hundreds of millions of climate simulations against historical observations to reduce uncertainty in climate sensitivity and future climate warming.
Laura A. McBride, Austin P. Hope, Timothy P. Canty, Brian F. Bennett, Walter R. Tribett, and Ross J. Salawitch
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 545–579, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-545-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-545-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We use a reduced-complexity climate model trained by observations to show that at the current rate of human release of CO2, total cumulative emissions will pass the 66 % likelihood of limiting warming to 1.5° or 2°C in about 10 and 35 years, respectively. We also show that complex climate models often used to guide policy tend to warm faster than observed over the past few decades. To achieve the Paris Climate Agreement, CO2 and CH4 emissions must be severely curtailed in the next decade.
Roberto Bilbao, Simon Wild, Pablo Ortega, Juan Acosta-Navarro, Thomas Arsouze, Pierre-Antoine Bretonnière, Louis-Philippe Caron, Miguel Castrillo, Rubén Cruz-García, Ivana Cvijanovic, Francisco Javier Doblas-Reyes, Markus Donat, Emanuel Dutra, Pablo Echevarría, An-Chi Ho, Saskia Loosveldt-Tomas, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Núria Pérez-Zanon, Arthur Ramos, Yohan Ruprich-Robert, Valentina Sicardi, Etienne Tourigny, and Javier Vegas-Regidor
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 173–196, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-173-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-173-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
This paper presents and evaluates a set of retrospective decadal predictions with the EC-Earth3 climate model. These experiments successfully predict past changes in surface air temperature but show poor predictive capacity in the subpolar North Atlantic, a well-known source region of decadal climate variability. The poor predictive capacity is linked to an initial shock affecting the Atlantic Ocean circulation, ultimately due to a suboptimal representation of the Labrador Sea density.
Assaf Hochman, Sebastian Scher, Julian Quinting, Joaquim G. Pinto, and Gabriele Messori
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 133–149, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-133-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-133-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Skillful forecasts of extreme weather events have a major socioeconomic relevance. Here, we compare two approaches to diagnose the predictability of eastern Mediterranean heat waves: one based on recent developments in dynamical systems theory and one leveraging numerical ensemble weather forecasts. We conclude that the former can be a useful and cost-efficient complement to conventional numerical forecasts for understanding the dynamics of eastern Mediterranean heat waves.
Manuel Schlund, Axel Lauer, Pierre Gentine, Steven C. Sherwood, and Veronika Eyring
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 1233–1258, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1233-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1233-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
As an important measure of climate change, the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) describes the change in surface temperature after a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) show a wide range in ECS. Emergent constraints are a technique to reduce uncertainties in ECS with observational data. Emergent constraints developed with data from CMIP phase 5 show reduced skill and higher ECS ranges when applied to CMIP6 data.
J. Isaac Miller and Kyungsik Nam
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 1123–1132, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1123-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1123-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
We augment an energy balance model with a novel measure of the oceans' multidecadal temperatures cycles to assess the contributions of model forcings and natural variability to the so-called hiatus in global warming. The model partially explains the recent slowdown and explains nearly all of the subsequent warming. The natural cycle suggests the possibility of a much longer hiatus over roughly 2023–2061.
Christopher H. O'Reilly, Daniel J. Befort, and Antje Weisheimer
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 1033–1049, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1033-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-1033-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This study examines how the output of large single-model ensembles can be calibrated using observational data to provide improved future projections over Europe. Using an out-of-sample
imperfect modeltest, in which calibration techniques are applied to individual climate model realisations, these techniques are shown to generally improve the reliability of European climate projections for the next 40 years, particularly for regional surface temperature.
Lukas Brunner, Angeline G. Pendergrass, Flavio Lehner, Anna L. Merrifield, Ruth Lorenz, and Reto Knutti
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 995–1012, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-995-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-995-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we weight climate models by their performance with respect to simulating aspects of historical climate and their degree of interdependence. Our method is found to increase projection skill and to correct for structurally similar models. The weighted end-of-century mean warming (2081–2100 relative to 1995–2014) is 3.7 °C with a likely (66 %) range of 3.1 to 4.6 °C for the strong climate change scenario SSP5-8.5; this is a reduction of 0.4 °C compared with the unweighted mean.
Femke J. M. M. Nijsse, Peter M. Cox, and Mark S. Williamson
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 737–750, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-737-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-737-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
One of the key questions in climate science is how much more heating we will get for a given rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A new generation of models showed that this might be more than previously expected. Comparing the new models to observed temperature rise since 1970, we show that there is no need to revise the estimate upwards. Air pollution, whose effect on climate warming is poorly understood, stopped rising, allowing us to better constrain the greenhouse gas signal.
Bastien François, Mathieu Vrac, Alex J. Cannon, Yoann Robin, and Denis Allard
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 537–562, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-537-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-537-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Recently, multivariate bias correction (MBC) methods designed to adjust climate simulations have been proposed. However, they use different approaches, leading potentially to different results. Therefore, this study intends to intercompare four existing MBC methods to provide end users with aid in choosing such methods for their applications. To do so, a wide range of evaluation criteria have been used to assess the ability of MBC methods to correct statistical properties of climate models.
Hideo Shiogama, Ryuichi Hirata, Tomoko Hasegawa, Shinichiro Fujimori, Noriko N. Ishizaki, Satoru Chatani, Masahiro Watanabe, Daniel Mitchell, and Y. T. Eunice Lo
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 435–445, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-435-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-435-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Based on climate simulations, we suggested that historical warming increased chances of drought exceeding the severe 2015 event in equatorial Asia due to El Niño. The fire and fire emissions of CO2/PM2.5 will largely increase at 1.5 and 2 °C warming. If global warming reaches 3 °C, as is expected from the current mitigation policies, chances of fire and CO2/PM2.5 emissions exceeding the 2015 event become approximately 100 %. Future climate policy has to consider these climate change effects.
Minchao Wu, Grigory Nikulin, Erik Kjellström, Danijel Belušić, Colin Jones, and David Lindstedt
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 377–394, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-377-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-377-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Regional Climate Models constitute a downscaling tool to provide high-resolution data for impact and adaptation studies. However, there is no unique definition of the added value of downscaling as it depends on many factors. We investigate the impact of spatial resolution and model formulation on downscaled rainfall in Africa. Our results show that improvements in downscaled rainfall compared to the driving reanalysis are often related to model formulation and not always to higher resolution.
James D. Annan and Julia C. Hargreaves
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 347–356, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-347-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-347-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
We explore the implicit assumptions that underlie many published probabilistic estimates of the equilibrium climate sensitivity – that is, the amount the climate will warm under a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. We demonstrate that many such estimates have made assumptions that would be difficult to justify and show how the calculations can be repeated in a more defensible manner. Our results show some significant differences from previous calculations.
Stella Todzo, Adeline Bichet, and Arona Diedhiou
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 319–328, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-319-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-319-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
This study uses climate projections over West Africa to investigate the future changes in different aspects of its hydrological cycle. Over the 21st century, temperatures are expected to increase at a faster rate (+0.5 °C per decade) than the global average (+0.3 °C per decade), leading to an intensification of the hydrological cycle on average of +11 % per °C over the Sahel (more intense precipitation and longer dry spells) and +3 % per °C over the Guinea Coast (more intense precipitation).
Olivier Champagne, Martin Leduc, Paulin Coulibaly, and M. Altaf Arain
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 301–318, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-301-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-301-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Southern Ontario has seen more high flows in winter recently due to earlier snowmelt. We show that 10 mm of daily rain and temperature higher than 5 °C are necessary conditions to generate winter high flows in the historical period. These conditions are associated with high pressure on the east coast bringing warm and wet conditions from the south. In the future, as snowfall decreases, warm events will generate less high flows, while rainfall will become a greater high-flow contributor.
Tímea Haszpra, Mátyás Herein, and Tamás Bódai
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 267–280, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-267-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-267-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
We investigate the changes in the ENSO phenomenon and the alterations of its precipitation-related teleconnections in the CESM-LE. To avoid the disadvantages of the subjective choices of traditional temporal methods, we use an ensemble-based snapshot framework providing instantaneous quantities computed over the ensemble dimension of the simulation. We find that ENSO teleconnections undergo considerable changes, and the ENSO amplitude remarkably increases by 2100.
Robert Vautard, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Friederike E. L. Otto, Pascal Yiou, Hylke de Vries, Erik van Meijgaard, Andrew Stepek, Jean-Michel Soubeyroux, Sjoukje Philip, Sarah F. Kew, Cecilia Costella, Roop Singh, and Claudia Tebaldi
Earth Syst. Dynam., 10, 271–286, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-271-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-271-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
The effect of human activities on the probability of winter wind storms like the ones that occurred in Western Europe in January 2018 is analysed using multiple model ensembles. Despite a significant probability decline in observations, we find no significant change in probabilities due to human influence on climate so far. However, such extreme events are likely to be slightly more frequent in the future. The observed decrease in storminess is likely to be due to increasing roughness.
Monica Ionita, Klaus Grosfeld, Patrick Scholz, Renate Treffeisen, and Gerrit Lohmann
Earth Syst. Dynam., 10, 189–203, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-189-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-189-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Based on a simple statistical model we show that the September sea ice extent has a high predictive skill, up to 4 months ahead, based on previous months' oceanic and atmospheric conditions. Our statistical model skillfully captures the interannual variability of the September sea ice extent and could provide a valuable tool for identifying relevant regions and oceanic and atmospheric parameters that are important for the sea ice development in the Arctic.
Gab Abramowitz, Nadja Herger, Ethan Gutmann, Dorit Hammerling, Reto Knutti, Martin Leduc, Ruth Lorenz, Robert Pincus, and Gavin A. Schmidt
Earth Syst. Dynam., 10, 91–105, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-91-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-91-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
Best estimates of future climate projections typically rely on a range of climate models from different international research institutions. However, it is unclear how independent these different estimates are, and, for example, the degree to which their agreement implies robustness. This work presents a review of the varied and disparate attempts to quantify and address model dependence within multi-model climate projection ensembles.
Nicole S. Lovenduski, Stephen G. Yeager, Keith Lindsay, and Matthew C. Long
Earth Syst. Dynam., 10, 45–57, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-45-2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-45-2019, 2019
Short summary
Short summary
This paper shows that the absorption of carbon dioxide by the ocean is predictable several years in advance. This is important because fossil-fuel-derived carbon dioxide is largely responsible for anthropogenic global warming and because carbon dioxide emission management and global carbon cycle budgeting exercises can benefit from foreknowledge of ocean carbon absorption. The promising results from this new forecast system justify the need for additional oceanic observations.
Femke J. M. M. Nijsse and Henk A. Dijkstra
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 999–1012, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-999-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-999-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
State-of-the-art climate models sometimes differ in their prediction of key aspects of climate change. The technique of
emergent constraintsuses observations of current climate to improve those predictions, using relationships between different climate models. Our paper first classifies the different uses of the technique, and continues with proposing a mathematical justification for their use. We also highlight when the application of emergent constraints might give biased predictions.
Bo Huang, Ulrich Cubasch, and Christopher Kadow
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 985–997, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-985-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-985-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
We find that CMIP5 models show more significant improvement in predicting zonal winds with initialisation than without initialisation based on the knowledge that zonal wind indices can be used as potential predictors for the EASM. Given the initial conditions, two models improve the seasonal prediction skill of the EASM, while one model decreases it. The models have different responses to initialisation due to their ability to depict the EASM–ESNO coupled mode.
Sebastian Illing, Christopher Kadow, Holger Pohlmann, and Claudia Timmreck
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 701–715, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-701-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-701-2018, 2018
Jiawei Liu, Haiming Xu, and Jiechun Deng
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 427–439, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-427-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-427-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
A novel method based on
present–futurerelationship in observed climate and model-simulated future climate is applied to give more reliable projections of East Asian summer monsoon intensity and associated precipitation changes at 1.5 and 2 °C warming levels. Projected future changes suggest decreased precipitation over the Meiyu belt and increased precipitation over the high latitudes of East Asia and central China, together with a considerable weakening of EASM intensity.
Michael Wehner, Dáithí Stone, Dann Mitchell, Hideo Shiogama, Erich Fischer, Lise S. Graff, Viatcheslav V. Kharin, Ludwig Lierhammer, Benjamin Sanderson, and Harinarayan Krishnan
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 299–311, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-299-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-299-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change challenged the scientific community to describe the impacts of stabilizing the global temperature at its 21st Conference of Parties. A specific target of 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels had not been seriously considered by the climate modeling community prior to the Paris Agreement. This paper analyzes heat waves in simulations designed for this target. We find there are reductions in extreme temperature compared to a 2 °C target.
Peter Greve, Lukas Gudmundsson, and Sonia I. Seneviratne
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 227–240, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-227-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-227-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Assessing projected hydroclimatological changes is crucial, but associated with large uncertainties. We statistically assess here the response of precipitation and water availability to global temperature change, enabling us to estimate the significance of drying/wetting tendencies under anthropogenic climate change. We further show that opting for a 1.5 K warming target just slightly influences the mean response but could substantially reduce the risk of experiencing extreme changes.
Dana Ehlert and Kirsten Zickfeld
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 197–210, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-197-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-197-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
This study uses a global climate model to explore the extent to which sea level rise due to thermal expansion of the ocean is reversible if the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) declines. It is found that sea level continues to rise for several decades after atmospheric CO2 starts to decline and does not return to the pre-industrial level for over thousand years after atmospheric CO2 is restored to the pre-industrial concentration.
Michael F. Wehner, Kevin A. Reed, Burlen Loring, Dáithí Stone, and Harinarayan Krishnan
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 187–195, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-187-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-187-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change invited the scientific community to explore the impacts of a world in which anthropogenic global warming is stabilized at only 1.5 °C above preindustrial average temperatures. We present a projection of future tropical cyclone statistics for both 1.5 and 2.0 °C stabilized warming scenarios using a high-resolution global climate model. We find more frequent and intense tropical cyclones, but a reduction in weaker storms.
Nadja Herger, Gab Abramowitz, Reto Knutti, Oliver Angélil, Karsten Lehmann, and Benjamin M. Sanderson
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 135–151, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-135-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-135-2018, 2018
Short summary
Short summary
Users presented with large multi-model ensembles commonly use the equally weighted model mean as a best estimate, ignoring the issue of near replication of some climate models. We present an efficient and flexible tool that finds a subset of models with improved mean performance compared to the multi-model mean while at the same time maintaining the spread and addressing the problem of model interdependence. Out-of-sample skill and reliability are demonstrated using model-as-truth experiments.
Maida Zahid, Richard Blender, Valerio Lucarini, and Maria Caterina Bramati
Earth Syst. Dynam., 8, 1263–1278, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-1263-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-1263-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
The southern part of Pakistan (Sindh province) has been exposed to frequent and intense temperature extremes recently and is highly vulnerable to their impacts due to lack of information on recurrence of extremes. In this paper for the first time we estimated the return levels of daily maximum temperatures and daily maximum wet-bulb temperatures over the different return periods in Sindh, which would help the local administrations to prioritize the regions in terms of adaptations.
James D. Annan and Julia C. Hargreaves
Earth Syst. Dynam., 8, 211–224, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-211-2017, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-8-211-2017, 2017
Short summary
Short summary
The concept of independence has been frequently raised in climate science, but has rarely been defined and discussed in a theoretically robust and quantifiable manner. Improved understanding of this topic is critical to better understanding of climate change. In this paper, we introduce a unifying approach based on the statistical definition of independence, and illustrate with simple examples how it can be applied to practical questions.
Jozef Vilček, Jaroslav Škvarenina, Jaroslav Vido, Paulína Nalevanková, Radoslav Kandrík, and Jana Škvareninová
Earth Syst. Dynam., 7, 735–744, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-735-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-735-2016, 2016
Short summary
Short summary
Thermal continentality plays an important role not only in the basic characterisation of the climate in particular regions but also in the phytogeographic distribution of plants and ecosystem formation. Due to ongoing climate change, questions surrounding the changes of thermal continentality are very relevant. Our results show that the continentality of Slovakia increased in the period 1961 to 2013; however, this trend is not significant.
Cited articles
Ackerley, D., Booth, B. B. B., Knight, S. H. E., Highwood, E. J., Frame, D.
J., Allen, M. R., and Rowell, D. P.: Sensitivity of Twentieth-Century Sahel
Rainfall to Sulfate Aerosol and CO2 Forcing, J. Climate, 24,
4999–5014, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00019.1, 2011.
Allen, R. J.: A 21st century northward tropical precipitation shift caused by future anthropogenic aerosol reductions, J. Geophys. Res., 120, 9087–9102, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD023623, 2015.
Allen, R. J., Evan, A. T., and Booth, B. B. B.: Interhemispheric aerosol
radiative forcing and tropical precipitation shifts during the late Twentieth Century, J. Climate, 28, 8219–8246, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0148.1, 2015.
Andrews, M. B., Ridley, J. K., Wood, R. A., Andrews, T., Blockley, E. W., Booth, B., Burke, E., Dittus, A. J., Florek, P., Gray, L. J., Haddad, S.,
Hardiman, S. C., Hermanson, L., Hodson, D., Hogan, E., Jones, G. S., Knight, J. R., Kuhlbrodt, T., Misios, S., Mizielinski, M. S., Ringer, M. A., Robson,
J., and Sutton, R. T.: Historical Simulations With HadGEM3-GC3.1 for CMIP6,
J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 12, e2019MS001995, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001995, 2020.
Andrews, T., Andrews, M. B., Bodas-Salcedo, A., Jones, G. S., Kuhlbrodt, T.,
Manners, J., Menary, M. B., Ridley, J., Ringer, M. A., Sellar, A. A., Senior, C. A., and Tang, Y.: Forcings, Feedbacks, and Climate Sensitivity in HadGEM3-GC3.1 and UKESM1, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 11, 4377–4394, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001866, 2019.
Atwood, A. R., Donohoe, A., Battisti, D. S., Liu, X., and Pausata, F. S. R.:
Robust Longitudinally Variable Responses of the ITCZ to a Myriad of Climate
Forcings, Geophys. Res. Lett., 47, e2020GL088833, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL088833, 2020.
Bellouin, N., Rae, J., Jones, A., Johnson, C., Haywood, J., and Boucher, O.:
Aerosol forcing in the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) simulations by HadGEM2-ES and the role of ammonium nitrate, J. Geophys. Res., 116, D20206, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD016074, 2011.
Bellouin, N., Quaas, J., Gryspeerdt, E., Kinne, S., Stier, P., Watson-Parris, D., Boucher, O., Carslaw, K. S., Christensen, M., Daniau, A. L., Dufresne, J. L., Feingold, G., Fiedler, S., Forster, P., Gettelman, A., Haywood, J. M., Lohmann, U., Malavelle, F., Mauritsen, T., McCoy, D. T., Myhre, G., Mülmenstädt, J., Neubauer, D., Possner, A., Rugenstein, M., Sato, Y., Schulz, M., Schwartz, S. E., Sourdeval, O., Storelvmo, T., Toll, V., Winker, D., and Stevens, B.: Bounding Global Aerosol Radiative Forcing of Climate Change, Rev. Geophys., 58, e2019RG000660, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019RG000660, 2020.
Biasutti, M. and Giannini, A.: Robust Sahel drying in response to late 20th century forcings, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L11706, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL026067, 2006.
Bonfils, C. J. W., Santer, B. D., Fyfe, J. C., Marvel, K., Phillips, T. J.,
and Zimmerman, S. R. H.: Human influence on joint changes in temperature,
rainfall and continental aridity, Nat. Clim. Change, 10, 726–731, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0821-1, 2020.
Booth, B. B. B., Dunstone, N. J., Halloran, P. R., Andrews, T., and Bellouin, N.: Aerosols implicated as a prime driver of twentieth-century North Atlantic climate variability, Nature, 484, 228–232, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10946, 2012.
Broccoli, A. J., Dahl, K. A., and Stouffer, R. J.: Response of the ITCZ to
Northern Hemisphere cooling, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01702, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005GL024546, 2006.
Byrne, M. P., Pendergrass, A. G., Rapp, A. D., and Wodzicki, K. R.: Response
of the Intertropical Convergence Zone to Climate Change: Location, Width, and Strength, Curr. Clim. Change Rep., 4, 355–370, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-018-0110-5, 2018.
Chang, C. Y., Chiang, J. C. H., Wehner, M. F., Friedman, A. R., and Ruedy, R.: Sulfate aerosol control of tropical atlantic climate over the twentieth
century, J. Climate, 24, 2540–2555, https://doi.org/10.1175/2010JCLI4065.1, 2011.
Chemke, R. and Dagan, G.: The effects of the spatial distribution of direct
anthropogenic aerosols radiative forcing on atmospheric circulation, J. Climate, 31, 7129–7145, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0694.1, 2018.
Chiang, J. C. H. and Bitz, C. M.: Influence of high latitude ice cover on the marine Intertropical Convergence Zone, Clim. Dynam., 25, 477–496,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-005-0040-5, 2005.
Chiang, J. C. H. and Friedman, A. R.: Extratropical cooling, interhemispheric thermal gradients, and tropical climate change, Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci., 40, 383–412, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-042711-105545, 2012.
Choudhury, B. A., Rajesh, P. V., Zahan, Y., and Goswami, B. N.: Evolution of
the Indian summer monsoon rainfall simulations from CMIP3 to CMIP6 models,
Clim. Dynam., 58, 2637–2662, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-06023-0, 2021.
Chung, E. S. and Soden, B. J.: Hemispheric climate shifts driven by anthropogenic aerosol-cloud interactions, Nat. Geosci., 10, 566–571, https://doi.org/10.1038/NGEO2988, 2017.
Collins, M., Sutherland, M., Bouwer, L., Cheong, S.-M., Frölicher, T.,
Des Combes, H. J., Roxy, M. K., Losada, I., McInnes, K., Ratter, B., Rivera-Arriaga, E., Susanto, R. D., Swingedouw, D., and Tibig, L.: Extremes, Abrupt Changes and Managing Risk, in: IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, edited by: Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D. C., Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Tignor, M., Poloczanska, E., Mintenbeck, K., Alegría, A., Nicolai, M., Okem, A., Petzold, J., Rama, B., and Weyer, N. M., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 589–655, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157964.008, 2019.
Colose, C. M., LeGrande, A. N., and Vuille, M.: The influence of volcanic
eruptions on the climate of tropical South America during the last millennium in an isotope-enabled general circulation model, Clim. Past, 12, 961–979, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-961-2016, 2016.
Diao, C., Xu, Y., and Xie, S.-P.: Anthropogenic aerosol effects on tropospheric circulation and sea surface temperature (1980–2020): separating the role of zonally asymmetric forcings, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 18499–18518, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-18499-2021, 2021.
Dong, B., Sutton, R. T., Highwood, E., and Wilcox, L.: The impacts of European and Asian anthropogenic sulfur dioxide emissions on Sahel rainfall,
J. Climate, 27, 7000–7017, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00769.1, 2014.
Donohoe, A., Marshall, J., Ferreira, D., and Mcgee, D.: The relationship
between ITCZ location and cross-equatorial atmospheric heat transport: From
the seasonal cycle to the last glacial maximum, J. Climate, 26, 3597–3618, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00467.1, 2013.
ESGF-CEDA: ESGF Portal at CEDA, https://esgf-index1.ceda.ac.uk/projects/esgf-ceda/, last access: 18 August 2022.
Evans, S., Dawson, E., and Ginoux, P.: Linear Relation Between Shifting ITCZ
and Dust Hemispheric Asymmetry, Geophys. Res. Lett., 47, e2020GL090499, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL090499, 2020.
Forster, P., Storelvmo, T., Armour, K., Collins, W., Dufresne, J.-L., Frame,
D., Lunt, D. J., Mauritsen, T., Palmer, M. D., Watanabe, M., Wild, M., and
Zhang, H.: The Earth's Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, and Climate Sensitivity, in: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pirani, A., Connors, S. L., Péan, C., Berger, S., Caud, N., Chen, Y., Goldfarb, L., Gomis, M. I., Huang, M., Leitzell, K., Lonnoy, E., Matthews, J. B. R., Maycock, T. K., Waterfield, T., Yelekçi, O., Yu, R., and Zhou, B., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, 923–1054, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.009, 2021.
Friedman, A. R., Hwang, Y.-T., Chiang, J. C. H., and Frierson, D. M. W.:
Interhemispheric Temperature Asymmetry over the Twentieth Century and in Future Projections, J. Climate, 26, 5419–5433, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00525.1, 2013.
Frierson, D. M. W. and Hwang, Y. T.: Extratropical influence on ITCZ shifts in slab ocean simulations of global warming, J. Climate, 25, 720–733, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00116.1, 2012.
Giannini, A. and Kaplan, A.: The role of aerosols and greenhouse gases in
Sahel drought and recovery, Climatic Change, 152, 449–466,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2341-9, 2019.
Gidden, M. J., Riahi, K., Smith, S. J., Fujimori, S., Luderer, G., Kriegler,
E., Van Vuuren, D. P., Van Den Berg, M., Feng, L., Klein, D., Calvin, K.,
Doelman, J. C., Frank, S., Fricko, O., Harmsen, M., Hasegawa, T., Havlik,
P., Hilaire, J., Hoesly, R., Horing, J., Popp, A., Stehfest, E., and Takahashi, K.: Global emissions pathways under different socioeconomic scenarios for use in CMIP6: A dataset of harmonized emissions trajectories
through the end of the century, Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 1443–1475, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1443-2019, 2019.
Green, B. and Marshall, J.: Coupling of Trade Winds with Ocean Circulation
Damps ITCZ Shifts, J. Climate, 30, 4395–4411, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0818.1, 2017.
Green, B., Marshall, J., and Donohoe, A.: Twentieth century correlations
between extratropical SST variability and ITCZ shifts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, 9039–9047, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL075044, 2017.
Gregory, J. M. and Forster, P. M.: Transient climate response estimated from
radiative forcing and observed temperature change, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 113, D23105, https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JD010405, 2008.
Hassan, T., Allen, R. J., Liu, W., and Randles, C. A.: Anthropogenic aerosol
forcing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the associated mechanisms in CMIP6 models, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 5821–5846, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5821-2021, 2021.
Haywood, J. M., Jones, A., Bellouin, N., and Stephenson, D.: Asymmetric forcing from stratospheric aerosols impacts Sahelian rainfall, Nat. Clim. Change, 3, 660–665, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1857, 2013.
Herman, R. J., Giannini, A., Biasutti, M., and Kushnir, Y.: The effects of
anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols and greenhouse gases on twentieth century Sahel precipitation, Scient. Rep., 10, 12203, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68356-w, 2020.
Hewitt, H. T., Copsey, D., Culverwell, I. D., Harris, C. M., Hill, R. S. R.,
Keen, A. B., McLaren, A. J., and Hunke, E. C.: Design and implementation of
the infrastructure of HadGEM3: The next-generation Met Office climate modelling system, Geosci. Model Dev., 4, 223–253, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-4-223-2011, 2011.
Hewitt, H. T., Roberts, M., Mathiot, P., Biastoch, A., Blockley, E., Chassignet, E. P., Fox-Kemper, B., Hyder, P., Marshall, D. P., Popova, E.,
Treguier, A. M., Zanna, L., Yool, A., Yu, Y., Beadling, R., Bell, M.,
Kuhlbrodt, T., Arsouze, T., Bellucci, A., Castruccio, F., Gan, B., Putrasahan, D., Roberts, C. D., Van Roekel, L., and Zhang, Q.: Resolving and
Parameterising the Ocean Mesoscale in Earth System Models, Springer,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-020-00164-w, 2020.
Hirasawa, H., Kushner, P. J., Sigmond, M., Fye, J., and Deser, C.: Anthropogenic aerosols dominate forced multidecadal sahel precipitation
change through distinct atmospheric and oceanic drivers, J. Climate, 33, 10187–10204, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0829.1, 2020.
Hwang, Y. T., Frierson, D. M. W., and Kang, S. M.: Anthropogenic sulfate
aerosol and the southward shift of tropical precipitation in the late 20th century, Geophys. Res. Lett., 40, 2845–2850, https://doi.org/10.1002/grl.50502, 2013.
Iles, C. E., Hegerl, G. C., Schurer, A. P., and Zhang, X.: The effect of
volcanic eruptions on global precipitation, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 118, 8770–8786, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50678, 2013.
Kang, S. M.: Extratropical Influence on the Tropical Rainfall Distribution,
Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-020-00154-y, 2020.
Kang, S. M., Held, I. M., Frierson, D. M. W., and Zhao, M.: The response of
the ITCZ to extratropical thermal forcing: Idealized slab-ocean experiments
with a GCM, J. Climate, 21, 3521–3532, https://doi.org/10.1175/2007JCLI2146.1, 2008.
Kang, S. M., Frierson, D. M. W., and Held, I. M.: The Tropical Response to
Extratropical Thermal Forcing in an Idealized GCM: The Importance of Radiative Feedbacks and Convective Parameterization, J. Atmos. Sci., 66, 2812–2827, https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JAS2924.1, 2009.
Kang, S. M., Shin, Y., and Xie, S.-P.: Extratropical forcing and tropical
rainfall distribution: energetics framework and ocean Ekman advection, npj
Clim. Atmos. Sci., 1, 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-017-0004-6, 2018.
Kang, S. M., Xie, S. P., Deser, C., and Xiang, B.: Zonal mean and shift modes of historical climate response to evolving aerosol distribution, Sci. Bull., 66, 2405–2411, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2021.07.013, 2021.
Lamarque, J. F., Bond, T. C., Eyring, V., Granier, C., Heil, A., Klimont, Z., Lee, D., Liousse, C., Mieville, A., Owen, B., Schultz, M. G., Shindell, D., Smith, S. J., Stehfest, E., Van Aardenne, J., Cooper, O. R., Kainuma, M., Mahowald, N., McConnell, J. R., Naik, V., Riahi, K., and Van Vuuren, D. P.: Historical (1850–2000) gridded anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions of reactive gases and aerosols: Methodology and application, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 7017–7039, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-7017-2010, 2010.
Lund, M. T., Myhre, G., and Samset, B. H.: Anthropogenic aerosol forcing under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 13827–13839, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-13827-2019, 2019.
Mamalakis, A., Randerson, J. T., Yu, J. Y., Pritchard, M. S., Magnusdottir,
G., Smyth, P., Levine, P. A., Yu, S., and Foufoula-Georgiou, E.: Zonally
contrasting shifts of the tropical rain belt in response to climate change,
Nat. Clim. Change, 11, 143–151, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00963-x, 2021.
Mann, G. W., Carslaw, K. S., Spracklen, D. V., Ridley, D. A., Manktelow, P.
T., Chipperfield, M. P., Pickering, S. J., and Johnson, C. E.: Description
and evaluation of GLOMAP-mode: a modal global aerosol microphysics model for
the UKCA composition-climate model, Geosci. Model Dev., 3, 519–551, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-3-519-2010, 2010.
McFarlane, A. A. and Frierson, D. M. W.: The role of ocean fluxes and radiative forcings in determining tropical rainfall shifts in RCP8.5 simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, 8656–8664, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074473, 2017.
Menary, M. B., Robson, J., Allan, R. P., Booth, B. B. B., Cassou, C., Gastineau, G., Gregory, J., Hodson, D., Jones, C., Mignot, J., Ringer, M.,
Sutton, R., Wilcox, L., and Zhang, R.: Aerosol-Forced AMOC Changes in CMIP6
Historical Simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 47, e2020GL088166, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL088166, 2020.
Met Office Hadley Centre: UKCP18 Global Projections at 60 km Resolution for 1900–2100, Centre for Environmental Data Analysis [data set], https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/97bc0c622a24489aa105f5b8a8efa3f0 (last access: 18 August 2022), 2018.
Moreno-Chamarro, E., Marshall, J., and Delworth, T. L.: Linking ITCZ Migrations to the AMOC and North Atlantic/Pacific SST Decadal Variability,
J. Climate, 33, 893–905, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0258.1, 2020.
Murphy, J. M., Harris, G. R., Sexton, D. M. H., Kendon, E. J., Bett, P. E.,
Clark, R. T., Eagle, K. E., Fosser, G., Fung, F., Lowe, J. A., McDonald, R. E., McInnes, R. N., McSweeney, C. F., Mitchell, J. F. B., Rostron, J. W.,
Thornton, H. E., Tucker, S., and Yamazaki, K.: UKCP18: Land Projections
Science Report, Met Office, https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/ukcp18/science-reports/UKCP18-Land-report.pdf (last access: 18 August 2022), 2018.
Myhre, G., Shindell, D., Aamaas, B., Boucher, O., Dalsøren, S., Daniel, J., Forster, P., Granier, C., Haigh, J., and Hodnebrog, Ø.: Anthropogenic
and natural radiative forcing, in: Climate Change 2013 the Physical Science
Basis: Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, vol. 9781107057, Cambridge University Press, 659–740, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.018, 2013.
Nazarenko, L., Rind, D., Tsigaridis, K., Del Genio, A. D., Kelley, M., and
Tausnev, N.: Interactive nature of climate change and aerosol forcing, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 122, 3457–3480, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025809, 2017.
Peace, A. H., Booth, B. B. B., Regayre, L. A., Carslaw, K. S., Sexton, D. M. H., Bonfils, C. J. W., and Rostron, J. W.: Evaluating Uncertainty in Aerosol Forcing of Tropical Precipitation Shifts, Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6979591, 2022.
Rao, S., Klimont, Z., Smith, S. J., Van Dingenen, R., Dentener, F., Bouwman,
L., Riahi, K., Amann, M., Bodirsky, B. L., van Vuuren, D. P., Aleluia Reis,
L., Calvin, K., Drouet, L., Fricko, O., Fujimori, S., Gernaat, D., Havlik,
P., Harmsen, M., Hasegawa, T., Heyes, C., Hilaire, J., Luderer, G., Masui,
T., Stehfest, E., Strefler, J., van der Sluis, S., and Tavoni, M.: Future
air pollution in the Shared Socio-economic Pathways, Global Environ. Change, 42, 346–358, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.012, 2017.
Regayre, L. A., Johnson, J. S., Yoshioka, M., Pringle, K. J., Sexton, D. M. H., Booth, B. B. B., Lee, L. A., Bellouin, N., and Carslaw, K. S.: Aerosol and physical atmosphere model parameters are both important sources of uncertainty in aerosol ERF, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 9975–10006, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-9975-2018, 2018.
Riahi, K., Rao, S., Krey, V., Cho, C., Chirkov, V., Fischer, G., Kindermann,
G., Nakicenovic, N., and Rafaj, P.: RCP 8.5 – A scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions, Climatic Change, 109, 33–57,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0149-y, 2011.
Rotstayn, L. D. and Lohmann, U.: Tropical Rainfall Trends and the Indirect
Aerosol Effect, J. Climate, 15, 2103–2116,
https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<2103:TRTATI>2.0.CO;2, 2002.
Rotstayn, L. D., Ryan, B. F., and Penner, J. E.: Precipitation changes in a
GCM resulting from the indirect effects of anthropogenic aerosols, Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 3045–3048, https://doi.org/10.1029/2000GL011737, 2000.
Rotstayn, L. D., Collier, M. A., and Luo, J.-J.: Effects of declining aerosols on projections of zonally averaged tropical precipitation, Environ. Res. Lett., 10, 044018, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/044018, 2015.
Schleussner, C. F., Levermann, A., and Meinshausen, M.: Probabilistic
projections of the Atlantic overturning, Climatic Change, 127, 579–586,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1265-2, 2014.
Sexton, D., Yamazaki, K., Murphy, J., and Rostron, J.: Assessment of drifts
and internal variability in UKCP projections, Met Office, https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/research/ukcp/ukcp-climate-drifts-report.pdf (last access: 18 August 2022), 2020.
Sexton, D. M. H., McSweeney, C. F., Rostron, J. W., Yamazaki, K., Booth, B.
B. B., Johnson, J., Murphy, J. M., and Regayre, L.: A perturbed parameter
ensemble of HadGEM3-GC3.05 coupled model projections: part 1: selecting the
parameter combinations, Clim. Dynam., 56, 3395–3436, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05709-9, 2021.
Smith, C. J., Kramer, R. J., Myhre, G., Alterskjær, K., Collins, W., Sima, A., Boucher, O., Dufresne, J.-L., Nabat, P., Michou, M., Yukimoto, S., Cole, J., Paynter, D., Shiogama, H., O'Connor, F. M., Robertson, E., Wiltshire, A., Andrews, T., Hannay, C., Miller, R., Nazarenko, L., Kirkevåg, A., Olivié, D., Fiedler, S., Lewinschal, A., Mackallah, C., Dix, M., Pincus, R., and Forster, P. M.: Effective radiative forcing and adjustments in CMIP6 models, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9591–9618, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9591-2020, 2020.
Takemura, T.: Return to different climate states by reducing sulphate aerosols under future CO2 concentrations, Sci. Rep., 10, 21748,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78805-1, 2020.
Taylor, K. E., Crucifix, M., Braconnot, P., Hewitt, C. D., Doutriaux, C., Broccoli, A. J., Mitchell, J. F. B., and Webb, M. J.: Estimating shortwave
radiative forcing and response in climate models, J. Climate, 20, 2530–2543, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI4143.1, 2007.
Taylor, K. E., Stouffer, R. J., and Meehl, G. A.: An overview of CMIP5 and
the experiment design, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 93, 485–498, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1, 2012.
Thompson, D. W. J., Wallace, J. M., Kennedy, J. J., and Jones, P. D.: An
abrupt drop in Northern Hemisphere sea surface temperature around 1970, Nature, 467, 444–447, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09394, 2010.
Utida, G., Cruz, F. W., Etourneau, J., Bouloubassi, I., Schefuß, E.,
Vuille, M., Novello, V. F., Prado, L. F., Sifeddine, A., Klein, V., Zular, A., Viana, J. C. C., and Turcq, B.: Tropical South Atlantic influence on
Northeastern Brazil precipitation and ITCZ displacement during the past 2300 years, Scient. Rep., 9, 1–8, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-38003-6, 2019.
van Vuuren, D. P., Stehfest, E., den Elzen, M. G. J., Kram, T., van Vliet,
J., Deetman, S., Isaac, M., Goldewijk, K. K., Hof, A., Beltran, A. M., Oostenrijk, R., and van Ruijven, B.: RCP2.6: Exploring the possibility to
keep global mean temperature increase below 2 ∘C, Climatic Change,
109, 95–116, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0152-3, 2011a.
van Vuuren, D. P., Edmonds, J., Kainuma, M., Riahi, K., Thomson, A., Hibbard, K., Hurtt, G. C., Kram, T., Krey, V., Lamarque, J.-F., Masui, T., Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N., Smith, S. J., and Rose, S. K.: The representative concentration pathways: an overview, Climatic Change, 109,
5–31, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0148-z, 2011b.
Voigt, A., Pincus, R., Stevens, B., Bony, S., Boucher, O., Bellouin, N.,
Lewinschal, A., Medeiros, B., Wang, Z., and Zhang, H.: Fast and slow shifts
of the zonal-mean intertropical convergence zone in response to an idealized
anthropogenic aerosol, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 9, 870–892, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016MS000902, 2017.
Walters, D., Baran, A. J., Boutle, I., Brooks, M., Earnshaw, P., Edwards, J., Furtado, K., Hill, P., Lock, A., Manners, J., Morcrette, C., Mulcahy, J., Sanchez, C., Smith, C., Stratton, R., Tennant, W., Tomassini, L., Van Weverberg, K., Vosper, S., Willett, M., Browse, J., Bushell, A., Carslaw,
K., Dalvi, M., Essery, R., Gedney, N., Hardiman, S., Johnson, B., Johnson,
C., Jones, A., Jones, C., Mann, G., Milton, S., Rumbold, H., Sellar, A., Ujiie, M., Whitall, M., Williams, K., and Zerroukat, M.: The Met Office
Unified Model Global Atmosphere 7.0/7.1 and JULES Global Land 7.0
configurations, Geosci. Model Dev., 12, 1909–1963,
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1909-2019, 2019.
Williams, K. D., Jones, A., Roberts, D. L., Senior, C. A., and Woodage, M. J.: The response of the climate system to the indirect effects of anthropogenic sulfate aerosol, Clim. Dynam., 17, 845–856,
https://doi.org/10.1007/s003820100150, 2001.
Williams, K. D., Copsey, D., Blockley, E. W., Bodas-Salcedo, A., Calvert, D., Comer, R., Davis, P., Graham, T., Hewitt, H. T., Hill, R., Hyder, P., Ineson, S., Johns, T. C., Keen, A. B., Lee, R. W., Megann, A., Milton, S. F., Rae, J. G. L., Roberts, M. J., Scaife, A. A., Schiemann, R., Storkey, D., Thorpe, L., Watterson, I. G., Walters, D. N., West, A., Wood, R. A., Woollings, T., and Xavier, P. K.: The Met Office Global Coupled Model 3.0 and 3.1 (GC3.0 and GC3.1) Configurations, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 10, 357–380, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017MS001115, 2018.
Yamazaki, K., Sexton, D. M. H., Rostron, J. W., McSweeney, C. F., Murphy, J.
M., and Harris, G. R.: A perturbed parameter ensemble of HadGEM3-GC3.05
coupled model projections: part 2: global performance and future changes,
Clim. Dynam., 56, 3437–3471, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05608-5, 2021.
Zelinka, M. D., Andrews, T., Forster, P. M., and Taylor, K. E.: Quantifying
components of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions in climate models, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 119, 7599–7615, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JD021710, 2014.
Zhang, S., Stier, P., and Watson-Parris, D.: On the contribution of fast and
slow responses to precipitation changes caused by aerosol perturbations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 10179–10197, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10179-2021, 2021.
Short summary
Anthropogenic aerosol emissions have been linked to driving climate responses such as shifts in the location of tropical rainfall. However, the interaction of aerosols with climate remains one of the most uncertain aspects of climate modelling and limits our ability to predict future climate change. We use an ensemble of climate model simulations to investigate what impact the large uncertainty in how aerosols interact with climate has on predicting future tropical rainfall shifts.
Anthropogenic aerosol emissions have been linked to driving climate responses such as shifts in...
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint