To date, very few studies have focused on dust and sea salt cloud interactions, particularly the semidirect effect (SDE) that results from changes in column temperature and moisture. Here, we isolate the SDE using several climate models driven by semiempirical dust and sea salt direct radiative effects. The global annual mean SDE varies from 0.01 to 0.10 W/m2, with the bulk of the signal coming from an increase in shortwave radiation. This is consistent with decreases in low cloud over ocean due to cloud burn‐off and reductions in midlevel cloud over land due to atmospheric stabilization and decreased convection. Overall, longwave effects weaken the positive SDE but with opposing effects over land and sea. High cloud is reduced over land but enhanced over sea. We conclude that dust and sea salt likely exert a global mean warming effect through cloud rapid adjustments.
Absorbing aerosols, like black carbon (BC), give rise to rapid adjustments, and the associated perturbation to the atmospheric temperature structure alters the cloud distribution. The level of scientific understanding of these rapid cloud adjustments—otherwise known as semi-direct effects (SDEs)—is considered low, with models indicating a likely negative (−0.44 to +0.1 Wm−2) forcing. Recent studies suggest this negative SDE is primarily driven by decreases in high-level clouds and enhanced longwave cooling. Here, we investigate the SDE using multiple models driven by observationally constrained fine-mode aerosol forcing without dust and sea salt. Unlike aerosol simulations, which yield a relatively vertically uniform aerosol atmospheric heating profile with significant upper-tropospheric heating, observation-based heating peaks in the lower-troposphere and then decays to zero in the mid-troposphere. We find a significant global annual mean decrease in low- and mid-level clouds, and weaker decreases in high-level clouds, which leads to a positive SDE dominated by shortwave radiation. Thus, in contrast to most studies, we find a robust positive SDE, implying cloud adjustments act to warm the climate system. Sensitivity tests with identical average, but vertically uniform observationally constrained aerosol atmospheric heating result in a negative SDE, due to enhanced longwave cooling as a result of large reductions in high-level clouds. Our results therefore suggest that model simulations lead to a negatively biased SDE, due to an aerosol atmospheric heating profile that is too vertically uniform.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10154435
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2397-3722
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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