Temperatures of Anvil Clouds and Radiative Tropopause in a Wide Array of Cloud-Resolving Simulations

Journal Article · Thu Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2022 · Journal of Climate

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-21-0962.1· OSTI ID:2305351

Seidel, Seth D. ^[1]; Yang, Da ^[1]

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1. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Here, we present 123 cloud-resolving simulations to study how temperatures of anvil clouds and radiative tropopause (RT) change with surface warming. Our simulation results show that the RT warms at approximately the same rate as anvil clouds. This relationship persists across a variety of modeling choices, including surface temperature, greenhouse gas concentration, and the representation of radiative transfer. We further show that the shifting ozone profile associated with climate warming may give rise to a fixed RT temperature as well as a fixed anvil temperature. This result points to the importance of faithful treatment of ozone in simulating clouds and climate change; the robust anvil–RT relationship may also provide alternative ways to understand what controls anvil temperature.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 2305351
• Journal Information: Journal of Climate, Journal Name: Journal of Climate Journal Issue: 24 Vol. 35; ISSN 0894-8755
• Publisher: American Meteorological Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Cirrus clouds
Cloud resolving models
Convective clouds
Ozone
Tropics