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Impacts of greenhouse gases and aerosol direct and indirect effects on clouds and radiation in atmospheric GCM simulations of the 1930–1989 period

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Abstract

Among anthropogenic perturbations of the Earth’s atmosphere, greenhouse gases and aerosols are considered to have a major impact on the energy budget through their impact on radiative fluxes. We use three ensembles of simulations with the LMDZ general circulation model to investigate the radiative impacts of five species of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, N2O, CFC-11 and CFC-12) and sulfate aerosols for the period 1930–1989. Since our focus is on the atmospheric changes in clouds and radiation from greenhouse gases and aerosols, we prescribed sea-surface temperatures in these simulations. Besides the direct impact on radiation through the greenhouse effect and scattering of sunlight by aerosols, strong radiative impacts of both perturbations through changes in cloudiness are analysed. The increase in greenhouse gas concentration leads to a reduction of clouds at all atmospheric levels, thus decreasing the total greenhouse effect in the longwave spectrum and increasing absorption of solar radiation by reduction of cloud albedo. Increasing anthropogenic aerosol burden results in a decrease in high-level cloud cover through a cooling of the atmosphere, and an increase in the low-level cloud cover through the second aerosol indirect effect. The trend in low-level cloud lifetime due to aerosols is quantified to 0.5 min day−1 decade−1 for the simulation period. The different changes in high (decrease) and low-level (increase) cloudiness due to the response of cloud processes to aerosols impact shortwave radiation in a contrariwise manner, and the net effect is slightly positive. The total aerosol effect including the aerosol direct and first indirect effects remains strongly negative.

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Acknowledgements

The SST and sea ice extent data were provided by Dr. Nick Rayner of the Hadley Centre. GHG concentration data are from Dr. Gunnar Myhre of the Department for Geophysics, University of Oslo. Computer time was provided by Institut de Développement et des Resources en Informatique Scientifique (IDRIS) of the CNRS. We thank Dr. Zhao-Xin Li for many helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, IPSL/C.N.R.S., Paris, France

    Johannes Quaas, Jean-Louis Dufresne & Hervé Le Treut

  2. Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique, Unversité de Lille/C.N.R.S., Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

    Olivier Boucher

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  1. Johannes Quaas
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  2. Olivier Boucher
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  4. Hervé Le Treut
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Correspondence to Johannes Quaas.

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Quaas, J., Boucher, O., Dufresne, JL. et al. Impacts of greenhouse gases and aerosol direct and indirect effects on clouds and radiation in atmospheric GCM simulations of the 1930–1989 period. Climate Dynamics 23, 779–789 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-004-0475-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-004-0475-0

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