To date, climate and regional models have generally proven unsuccessful at simulating Arctic cloudiness, particularly during the colder months. Models tend to underpredict the amount of liquid water in mixed-phase clouds, which are ubiquitous in this region. This is problematic because cloud coverage and phase can greatly impact the Arctic radiative budget. Using recent measurements of ice nucleating aerosol, we show that incorrect, or nonexistent, parameterizations of aerosol-cloud interactions are at least partially responsible for the poor model predictions. Moreover, we show that this can lead to errors in the modeled surface radiative energy budget of 10-100 W m-2.
Revised: August 6, 2010 |
Published: April 1, 2007
Citation
Prenni A.J., J.Y. Harrington, M. Tjernstrom, P.J. DeMott, A. Avramov, C.N. Long, and S.M. Kreidenweis, et al. 2007.Can Ice-Nucleating Aerosols Affect Arctic Seasonal Climate?.Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 88, no. 4:541-550.PNNL-SA-47093.