학술논문

Improving the Southern Ocean cloud albedo biases in a general circulation model
Document Type
article
Source
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol 20, Pp 7741-7751 (2020)
Subject
Physics
QC1-999
Chemistry
QD1-999
Language
English
ISSN
1680-7316
1680-7324
Abstract
The present generation of global climate models is characterised by insufficient reflection of short-wave radiation over the Southern Ocean due to a misrepresentation of clouds. This is a significant concern as it leads to excessive heating of the ocean surface, sea surface temperature biases and subsequent problems with atmospheric dynamics. In this study, we modify cloud microphysics in a recent version of the Met Office's Unified Model and show that choosing a more realistic value for the shape parameter of atmospheric ice crystals, in better agreement with theory and observations, benefits the simulation of short-wave radiation. In the model, for calculating the growth rate of ice crystals through deposition, the default assumption is that all ice particles are spherical in shape. We modify this assumption to effectively allow for oblique shapes or aggregates of ice crystals. Along with modified ice nucleation temperatures, we achieve a reduction in the annual-mean short-wave cloud radiative effect over the Southern Ocean by up to ∼4 W m−2 and seasonally much larger reductions compared to the control model. By slowing the growth of the ice phase, the model simulates substantially more supercooled liquid cloud.