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On atmospheric radiative feedbacks associated with climate variability and change

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Abstract

Using the method of radiative ‘kernels’ an analysis is made of water vapour, lapse rate and ‘Planck’ (uniform vertical temperature) long wave feedbacks in models participating in the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3). Feedbacks are calculated at climate change timescales from the A1B scenario, and at three ‘variability’ timescales from the corresponding preindustrial experiments: seasonal, interannual and decadal. Surface temperature responses show different meridional patterns for the different timescales, which are then manifest in the structures of the individual feedbacks. Despite these differences, mean water vapour feedback strength in models is positive for all models and timescales, and of comparable global magnitude across all timescales except for seasonal, where it is much weaker. Taking into consideration the strong positive lapse rate feedback at seasonal timescales, combined water vapour/lapse rate feedback is indeed similar across all timescales. To a good approximation, global water vapour feedback is found to be well represented by the temperature response along with an assumption of unchanged relative humidity under both variability and climate change. A comparison is also made of model feedbacks with reanalysis derived feedbacks for seasonal and interannual timescales. No strong relationships between individual modelled feedbacks at different timescales are evident: i.e., strong feedbacks in models at variability timescales do not in general predict strong climate change feedback, with the possible exception of seasonal timescales. There are caveats on this (and other) findings however, from uncertainties associated with the kernel technique and from, at times, very large uncertainties in estimating variability related feedbacks from temperature regressions.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Aurel Moise and Jeff Kepert for assistance with the statistical analysis. Thanks also to Scott Power and Josephine Brown for providing helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to Karen Shell and an anonymous reviewer for thorough and helpful review comments. We acknowledge the modelling groups for making their simulations available for analysis, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) for collecting and archiving the CMIP3 model output, and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) for organizing the model data analysis activity. The WCRP CMIP3 multi model dataset is supported by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. This work has been undertaken as part of the Australian Climate Change Science Program, funded jointly by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO.

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  1. Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Bureau of Meteorology, GPO Box 1289, Melbourne, VIC, 3001, Australia

    R. A. Colman & L. I. Hanson

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Correspondence to R. A. Colman.

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Colman, R.A., Hanson, L.I. On atmospheric radiative feedbacks associated with climate variability and change. Clim Dyn 40, 475–492 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1391-3

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