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The climate response to increased cloud liquid water over the Arctic in CESM1: a sensitivity study of Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen process

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Abstract

The surface radiative imbalance has large impacts on the long-term trends and year-to-year variability of Arctic sea ice. Clouds are believed to be a key factor in regulating this radiative imbalance, whose underlying processes and mechanisms, however, are not well understood. Compared with observations, the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1) is known to underestimate Arctic cloud liquid water. Here, the following hypothesis is proposed and tested: this underestimation is caused by an overactive Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen (WBF) process in model as too many supercooled liquid droplets are scavenged by ice crystals via deposition. In this study, the efficiency of the WBF process in CESM1 was reduced to investigate the Arctic climate response, and differentiate the responses induced by atmosphere–ocean–sea ice coupling and global warming. By weakening the WBF process, CESM1 simulated liquid cloud fractions increased, especially in winter and spring. The cloud response resulted in increased downwelling longwave flux and decreased shortwave flux at the surface. Arctic clouds and radiation in simulations with reduced WBF efficiency show a better agreement with satellite retrievals. In addition, both coupling and global warming amplify the cloud response to a less efficient WBF process, due to increased relative humidity and enhanced evaporation, respectively. As a response, the sea ice tends to melt over the North Atlantic Ocean, most likely caused by a positive feedback process between clouds, radiation and sea ice during non-summer months. These results improve our understanding of large-scale effects of the WBF process and the role of cloud liquid water in the Arctic climate system.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship program to Y. Huang at the University of Arizona (80NSSC18K1339). X. Dong and B. Xi were supported by NASA CERES project through Grant 80NSSC19K0172 at the University of Arizona. J. E. Kay was supported by NASA 15-CCST15-0025. E. McIlhattan was supported by the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship program (NNX16AN99H). We would like to acknowledge high-performance computing support from Cheyenne (https://doi.org/10.5065/D6RX99HX) provided by NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

In this study, GCM-Oriented CALIPSO Cloud Product (CALIPSO-GOCCP) data was obtained from https://climserv.ipsl.polytechnique.fr/cfmip-obs/Calipso_goccp.html. While NASA CERES SYN1deg and CERES EBAF-surface datasets are available at http://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/order_data.php. The CESM-Large Ensemble dataset is available on NCAR High Performance Storage System (HPSS) on Cheyenne (http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/projects/community-projects/LENS/data-sets.html). The output of CESM experiments is available from corresponding author upon request. We would like to thank Marika Holland for constructive comments and suggestions, as well as Hugh Morrison, Cecile Hannay and Brian Eaton for model setup and code modification. In addition, we appreciate Alexa Marcovecchio for proofreading as well as four anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, 1133 E. James Rogers Way, PO Box 210011, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0011, USA

    Yiyi Huang, Xiquan Dong & Baike Xi

  2. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Jennifer E. Kay

  3. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Elin A. McIlhattan

Authors
  1. Yiyi Huang
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  2. Xiquan Dong
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  3. Jennifer E. Kay
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  4. Baike Xi
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  5. Elin A. McIlhattan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiquan Dong.

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Huang, Y., Dong, X., Kay, J.E. et al. The climate response to increased cloud liquid water over the Arctic in CESM1: a sensitivity study of Wegener–Bergeron–Findeisen process. Clim Dyn 56, 3373–3394 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05648-5

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