Abstract
In this study, the relationship between the cloud radiative effect and the northern boundary of the Hadley circulation (HC) in summer is analyzed using the reanalysis data and the simulation data from the coupled model intercomparison project (CMIP) phases 5 and 6. The results indicate that the accuracy of the simulated HC’s northern extent has improved in CMIP6 compared to CMIP5. Further investigation reveals that the shortwave cloud radiative effect (SWCRE) is a crucial factor that influences the HC’s northern extent simulation. The changes in SWCRE mainly attributed to low-cloud types in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly over the subtropical and extratropical North Pacific. The direct radiation is the primary contributor to the difference in SWCRE that further causes the difference in simulated HC’s northern extent between CMIP5 and CMIP6. Dynamic diagnosis identifies the convective transport of dry static energy as a key factor associated with the differences in the simulated HC’s northern limit. The convective transport exhibits a strong relationship with the projected changes in the HC’s northern boundary from low-emission to high-emission scenarios. The findings of this study provide compelling evidence for improving our understanding of the further changes in the Hadley circulation.
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Data availability
The CMIP5 and CMIP6 data were downloaded from https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/projects/cmip5/, the ERA5 data was downloaded from https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/dataset/ecmwf-reanalysis-v5. And we also acknowledge the Atmospheric Environment Research team for providing the RTE + RRTMGP source code (http://rtweb.aer.com/rrtm_frame.html) used for developing the radiative kernel in this work (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5842710).
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Funding
This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 42022035, 42030603, 41925022, and 42005050, the Natural Science Foundation of Yunnan Province, grant number 202301AV070001, 202302AN360006, and the Provincial Innovative Team of the Climate Change Study of Greater Mekong Subregion, grant number 2019HC027.
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The first two authors contributed equally to this work. Ruowen Yang contributed to the conception. Shu Gui collected the data collection and performed the analysis. Chuanfeng Zhao and Lin Wang provided valuable suggestions for manuscript revision. Jinxin Cheng, Ning Qi, and Huan Yang contributed to the figure preparation. Ruowen Yang and Shu Gui wrote the main manuscript text. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Gui, S., Yang, R., Zhao, C. et al. Association of the cloud radiative effect with the changes in the northern edge of Hadley circulation between the CMIP5 and CMIP6 models in boreal summer. Theor Appl Climatol 155, 1247–1259 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04679-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04679-8