Engineering topics

Allan, Richard P.

Publications and source records attributed to Allan, Richard P..

3 records

DOE OSTI2022

On the Effect of Historical SST Patterns on Radiative Feedback

Here, we investigate the dependence of radiative feedback on the pattern of sea-surface temperature (SST) change in fourteen Atmospheric General Circulation Models (AGCMs) forced with observed variations in SST and sea-ice over the historical record from 1871 to near-present. We find that over 1871-1980, the Earth warmed with feedbacks largely consistent and strongly correlated with long term climate sensitivity feedbacks (diagnosed from corresponding atmosphere-ocean GCM abrupt 4xCO2 simulations). Post 1980 however, the Earth warmed with unusual trends in tropical Pacific SSTs (enhanced warming in the west, cooling in the east) and cooling in the Southern Ocean that drove climate feedback to be uncorrelated with – and indicating much lower climate sensitivity than – that expected for long-term CO 2 increase. We show that these conclusions are not strongly dependent on the AMIP II SST dataset used to force the AGCMs, though the magnitude of feedback post 1980 is generally smaller in nine AGCMs forced with alternative HadISST1 SST boundary conditions. We quantify a ‘pattern effect’ (defined as the difference between historical and longterm CO 2 feedback) equal to 0.48 ± 0.47 [5-95%] W m -2 K -1 for the time-period 1871-2010 when the AGCMs are forced with HadISST1 SSTs, or 0.70 ± 0.47 [5-95%] W m -2 K -1 when forced with AMIP II SSTs. Assessed changes in the Earth’s historical energy budget agree with the AGCM feedback estimates. Furthermore satellite observations of changes in top-of-atmosphere radiative fluxes since 1985 suggest that the pattern effect was particularly strong over recent decades but may be waning post 2014.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2017

Strong Constraints on Aerosol-Cloud Interactions from Volcanic Eruptions

Aerosols have a potentially large effect on climate, particularly through their interactions with clouds, but the magnitude of this effect is highly uncertain. Large volcanic eruptions produce sulfur dioxide, which in turn produces aerosols; these eruptions thus represent a natural experiment through which to quantify aerosol-cloud interactions. Here we show that the massive 2014-2015 fissure eruption in Holuhraun, Iceland, reduced the size of liquid cloud droplets - consistent with expectations - but had no discernible effect on other cloud properties. The reduction in droplet size led to cloud brightening and global-mean radiative forcing of around minus 0.2 watts per square metre for September to October 2014. Changes in cloud amount or cloud liquid water path, however, were undetectable, indicating that these indirect effects, and cloud systems in general, are well buffered against aerosol changes. This result will reduce uncertainties in future climate projections, because we are now able to reject results from climate models with an excessive liquid-water-path response.

atmospheric science↗

NASA NTRS2013

Co-variation of Temperature and Precipitation in CMIP5 Models and Satellite Observations

Current variability of precipitation (P) and its response to surface temperature (T) are analysed using coupled (CMIP5) and atmosphere-only (AMIP5) climate model simulations and compared with observational estimates.There is striking agreement between Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) observed and AMIP5)simulated P anomalies over land both globally and in the tropics suggesting that prescribed sea surface temperature and realistic radiative forcings are sufficient for simulating the interannual variability in continental P. Differences between the observed and simulated P variability over the ocean, originate primarily from the wet tropical regions, in particular the western Pacific, but are reduced slightly after 1995. All datasets show positive responses of P to T globally of around 2 % K for simulations and 3-4 % K in GPCP observations but model responses over the tropical oceans are around 3 times smaller than GPCP over the period 1988-2005. The observed anticorrelation between land and ocean P, linked with El Nio Southern Oscillation, is captured by the simulations. All data sets over the tropical ocean show a tendency for wet regions to become wetter and dry regions drier with warming. Over the wet region (greater than or equal to 75 precipitation percentile), the precipitation response is 13-15%K for GPCP and 5%K for models while trends in P are 2.4% decade for GPCP, 0.6% decade for CMIP5 and 0.9decade for AMIP5 suggesting that models are underestimating the precipitation responses or a deficiency exists in the satellite datasets.

surface temperature↗