Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates
Recent studies, using Lagrangian single-column atmospheric models, have proposed that in warmer climates more low clouds would form asmaritime airmasses advect intoNorthernHemisphere high-latitude continental interiors during winter (DJF). This increase in low cloud amount and optical thickness coul...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Meteorological Society
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/125777 |
| _version_ | 1811090485012332544 |
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| author | Hu, Zeyuan Cronin, Timothy Wallace Tziperman, Eli |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Hu, Zeyuan Cronin, Timothy Wallace Tziperman, Eli |
| author_sort | Hu, Zeyuan |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Recent studies, using Lagrangian single-column atmospheric models, have proposed that in warmer climates more low clouds would form asmaritime airmasses advect intoNorthernHemisphere high-latitude continental interiors during winter (DJF). This increase in low cloud amount and optical thickness could reduce surface radiative cooling and suppressArctic air formation events, partly explaining both the warmwinter high-latitude continental interior climate and frost-intolerant species found there during the Eocene and the positive lapserate feedback in future Arctic climate change scenarios. Here the authors examine the robustness of this lowcloud mechanism in a three-dimensional atmospheric model that includes large-scale dynamics. Different warming scenarios are simulated under prescribed CO2 and sea surface temperature, and the sensitivity of winter temperatures and clouds over high-latitude continental interior to mid- and high-latitude sea surface temperatures is examined. Model results show that winter 2-m temperatures on extreme cold days increase about 50% faster than the winter mean temperatures and the prescribed SST. Low cloud fraction and surface longwave cloud radiative forcing also increase in both the winter mean state and on extreme cold days, consistent with previous Lagrangian air-mass studies, but with cloud fraction increasing for different reasons than proposed by previous work. At high latitudes, the cloud longwave warming effect dominates the shortwave cooling effect, and the net cloud radiative forcing at the surface tends to warm high-latitude land but cool midlatitude land. This could contribute to the reducedmeridional temperature gradient in warmer climates and help explain the greater warming of winter cold extremes relative to winter mean temperatures. ©2018 American Meteorological Society. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:46:54Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/125777 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:46:54Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | American Meteorological Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1257772022-10-01T22:27:06Z Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates Hu, Zeyuan Cronin, Timothy Wallace Tziperman, Eli Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Recent studies, using Lagrangian single-column atmospheric models, have proposed that in warmer climates more low clouds would form asmaritime airmasses advect intoNorthernHemisphere high-latitude continental interiors during winter (DJF). This increase in low cloud amount and optical thickness could reduce surface radiative cooling and suppressArctic air formation events, partly explaining both the warmwinter high-latitude continental interior climate and frost-intolerant species found there during the Eocene and the positive lapserate feedback in future Arctic climate change scenarios. Here the authors examine the robustness of this lowcloud mechanism in a three-dimensional atmospheric model that includes large-scale dynamics. Different warming scenarios are simulated under prescribed CO2 and sea surface temperature, and the sensitivity of winter temperatures and clouds over high-latitude continental interior to mid- and high-latitude sea surface temperatures is examined. Model results show that winter 2-m temperatures on extreme cold days increase about 50% faster than the winter mean temperatures and the prescribed SST. Low cloud fraction and surface longwave cloud radiative forcing also increase in both the winter mean state and on extreme cold days, consistent with previous Lagrangian air-mass studies, but with cloud fraction increasing for different reasons than proposed by previous work. At high latitudes, the cloud longwave warming effect dominates the shortwave cooling effect, and the net cloud radiative forcing at the surface tends to warm high-latitude land but cool midlatitude land. This could contribute to the reducedmeridional temperature gradient in warmer climates and help explain the greater warming of winter cold extremes relative to winter mean temperatures. ©2018 American Meteorological Society. National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41530423) National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41761144072) Harvard Climate Change solutions fund Harvard Global Institute NSF P2C2 Program (grant no. OCE-1602864) NSF Climate Dynamics program (grant no. AGS-1622985) NSF Climate Dynamics program (grant no. AGS-1623218) 2020-06-12T13:24:33Z 2020-06-12T13:24:33Z 2018-11 2018-03 2020-06-08T12:58:32Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1520-0442 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/125777 Hu, Zeyuan et al., "Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates." Journal of Climate 31, 23 (December 2018): 9625-40 doi. 10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0129.1 ©2018 Authors en https://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0129.1 Journal of Climate Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Meteorological Society American Meteorological Society |
| spellingShingle | Hu, Zeyuan Cronin, Timothy Wallace Tziperman, Eli Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates |
| title | Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates |
| title_full | Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates |
| title_fullStr | Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates |
| title_full_unstemmed | Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates |
| title_short | Suppression of Cold Weather Events over High-Latitude Continents in Warm Climates |
| title_sort | suppression of cold weather events over high latitude continents in warm climates |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/125777 |
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