Article (Scientific journals)
Confronting Arctic Troposphere, Clouds, and Surface Energy Budget Representations in Regional Climate Models With Observations
Sedlar, Joseph; Tjernström, Michael; Rinke, Annette et al.
2020In Journal of Geophysical Research. Atmospheres, 125
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
 

Files


Full Text
2019JD031783.pdf
Publisher postprint (21.1 MB)
Request a copy

All documents in ORBi are protected by a user license.

Send to



Details



Abstract :
[en] A coordinated regional climate model (RCM) evaluation and intercomparison project based on observations from a July–October 2014 trans‐Arctic Ocean field experiment (ACSE‐Arctic Clouds during Summer Experiment) is presented. Six state‐of‐the‐art RCMs were constrained with common reanalysis lateral boundary forcing and upper troposphere nudging techniques to explore how the RCMs represented the evolution of the surface energy budget (SEB) components and their relation to cloud properties. We find that the main reasons for the modeled differences in the SEB components are a direct consequence of the RCM treatment of cloud and cloud‐radiative interactions. The RCMs could be separated into groups by their overestimation or underestimation of cloud liquid. While radiative and turbulent heat flux errors were relatively large, they often invoke compensating errors. In addition, having the surface sea‐ice concentrations constrained by the reanalysis or satellite observations limited how errors in the modeled radiative fluxes could affect the SEB and ultimately the surface evolution and its coupling with lower tropospheric mixing and cloud properties. Many of these results are consistent with RCM biases reported in studies over a decade ago. One of the six models was a fully coupled ocean‐ice‐atmosphere model. Despite the biases in overestimating cloud liquid, and associated SEB errors due to too optically thick clouds, its simulations were useful in understanding how the fully coupled system is forced by, and responds to, the SEB evolution. Moving forward, we suggest that development of RCM studies need to consider the fully coupled climate system.
Research center :
Sphères - SPHERES
Disciplines :
Earth sciences & physical geography
Author, co-author :
Sedlar, Joseph
Tjernström, Michael
Rinke, Annette
Orr, Andrew
Cassano, John
Fettweis, Xavier  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Climatologie et Topoclimatologie
Heinemann, Günther
Seefeldt, Mark
Solomon, Ay
Matthes, Heidrun
Phillips, Tony
Webster, Stuart
Language :
English
Title :
Confronting Arctic Troposphere, Clouds, and Surface Energy Budget Representations in Regional Climate Models With Observations
Publication date :
12 March 2020
Journal title :
Journal of Geophysical Research. Atmospheres
ISSN :
2169-897X
eISSN :
2169-8996
Publisher :
Wiley, Hoboken, United States - New Jersey
Volume :
125
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Tags :
CÉCI : Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif
Funders :
F.R.S.-FNRS - Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique [BE]
CÉCI - Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif [BE]
Available on ORBi :
since 24 March 2020

Statistics


Number of views
44 (6 by ULiège)
Number of downloads
5 (5 by ULiège)

Scopus citations®
 
28
Scopus citations®
without self-citations
8
OpenCitations
 
17

Bibliography


Similar publications



Contact ORBi