Uncertainty in aerosol-cloud radiative forcing is driven by clean conditions

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dc.contributor.authorGryspeerdt, Edward
dc.contributor.authorPovey, Adam C.
dc.contributor.authorGrainger, Roy G.
dc.contributor.authorHasekamp, Otto
dc.contributor.authorHsu, N. Christina
dc.contributor.authorMulcahy, Jane P.
dc.contributor.authorSayer, Andrew
dc.contributor.authorSorooshian, Armin
dc.date.accessioned2022-10-17T16:37:41Z
dc.date.available2022-10-17T16:37:41Z
dc.date.issued2023-04-05
dc.description.abstractAtmospheric aerosols and their impact on cloud properties remain the largest uncertainty in the human forcing of the climate system. By increasing the concentration of cloud droplets (Nd), aerosols reduce droplet size and increase the reflectivity of clouds (a negative radiative forcing). Central to this climate impact is the susceptibility of cloud droplet number to aerosol (β), the diversity of which explains much of the variation in radiative forcing in global climate models. This has 5 made measuring β a key target for developing observational constraints of the aerosol forcing. While the aerosol burden of the clean, pre-industrial atmosphere has been demonstrated as a key uncertainty for the aerosol forcing, here we show that the behaviour of clouds under these clean conditions is of equal importance for understanding the spread in radiative forcing estimates between models and observations. This means that the uncertainty in the aerosol impact on clouds is, counterintuitively, driven by situations with little aerosol. Discarding clean conditions produces a close agreement 10 between different model and observational estimates of the cloud response to aerosol, but does not provide a strong constraint on the radiative forcing from aerosol-cloud interactions. This makes constraining aerosol behaviour in clean conditions an important goal for future observational studies.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThe authors would like to thank the groups that submitted simulations to the AeroCom model intercomparison project. This work benefited from discussions within the group “Are we doing the right satellite observations and analyses for quantifying cloudmediated aerosol climate forcing?”, hosted by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI). EG was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (URF/R1/191602). AS was supported by NASA grant 80NSSC19K0442 in support of ACTIVATE, a NASA 180 Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) investigation funded by NASA’s Earth Science Division and managed through the Earth System Science Pathfinder Program Office. This study was partly funded through NERC’s support of the National Centre for Earth Observation, contract number PR140015.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/4115/2023/en_US
dc.format.extent8 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2puvz-iamt
dc.identifier.citationGryspeerdt, Edward, Adam C. Povey, Roy G. Grainger, Otto Hasekamp, N. Christina Hsu, Jane P. Mulcahy, Andrew M. Sayer, and Armin Sorooshian. “Uncertainty in Aerosol–Cloud Radiative Forcing Is Driven by Clean Conditions.” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 23, no. 7 (April 5, 2023): 4115–22. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4115-2023.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4115-2023
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/26196
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherEGUen_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC GESTAR II Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.rightsThis work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.en_US
dc.rightsPublic Domain Mark 1.0*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/*
dc.titleUncertainty in aerosol-cloud radiative forcing is driven by clean conditionsen_US
dc.typeTexten_US
dcterms.creatorhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9149-1789en_US

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