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Surface forcing of interannual variations in the radiation balance over North Africa part I: Partitioning the surface and cloud forcing

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Abstract

Previous research has shown that most significant interannual variability of the net radiation balance is confined to a few distinct centers at low latitudes. North Africa is the only continental region within this zone which undergoes large amplitude interannual changes. This two part study focuses on the origins of the North African radiation balance variability, its relationship to precipitation processes, and the potential impact of confined regional variations on global climate. Part I investigates how net radiation perturbations can be decomposed into surface induced components and cloud induced components. The methodology is based on lengthy time series of satellite derived radiation budget and cloudiness quantities in conjunction with a technique derived from the Cess et al. (1982) study involving the formulation of a climate sensitivity parameter.

The analysis shows that a significant portion of the interannual modulation of net radiation over North Africa arises from surface influences. Furthermore it appears that a significant part of the mechanism inducing these changes takes place through precipitation controls on the land surface. Cloud induced anomalies are important but represent the weaker of the two processes. Since North Africa is the sink portion of a large scale, cross-meridional energy transport dipole counterpoised to a large scale energy source in the Western Pacific, it is of fundamental importance on the global scale to determine the origins of net radiation variations within the sink.

The analysis indicates three dominant time scales associated with precipitation feedback on the net radiation anomalies; a slow manifold of approximately 20 months; a fast manifold of 2.5 months; and a semi-annual manifold. These time scales underlie the surface and cloud forced net radiation anomalies in which southern, central, and northern latitude sectors of North Africa exhibit their own distinct modes of control on the regional radiation balance.

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  1. Department of Meteorology and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The Florida State University, 32306, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Eric A. Smith & Byung-Ju Sohn

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  1. Eric A. Smith
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Smith, E.A., Sohn, BJ. Surface forcing of interannual variations in the radiation balance over North Africa part I: Partitioning the surface and cloud forcing. Climatic Change 17, 147–192 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138367

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