Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
SpringerLink
Log in

Low-Cloud Feedbacks from Cloud-Controlling Factors: A Review

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Shallow Clouds, Water Vapor, Circulation, and Climate Sensitivity

Part of the book series: Space Sciences Series of ISSI ((SSSI,volume 65))

Abstract

The response to warming of tropical low-level clouds including both marine stratocumulus and trade cumulus is a major source of uncertainty in projections of future climate. Climate model simulations of the response vary widely, reflecting the difficulty the models have in simulating these clouds. These inadequacies have led to alternative approaches to predict low-cloud feedbacks. Here, we review an observational approach that relies on the assumption that observed relationships between low clouds and the ‘‘cloud-controlling factors’’ of the large-scale environment are invariant across time-scales. With this assumption, and given predictions of how the cloud-controlling factors change with climate warming, one can predict low-cloud feedbacks without using any model simulation of low clouds. We discuss both fundamental and implementation issues with this approach and suggest steps that could reduce uncertainty in the predicted low-cloud feedback. Recent studies using this approach predict that the tropical low-cloud feedback is positive mainly due to the observation that reflection of solar radiation by low clouds decreases as temperature increases, holding all other cloud-controlling factors fixed. The positive feedback from temperature is partially offset by a negative feedback from the tendency for the inversion strength to increase in a warming world, with other cloudcontrolling factors playing a smaller role. A consensus estimate from these studies for the contribution of tropical low clouds to the global mean cloud feedback is 0.25 ± 0.18 W m −2 K −1 (90% confidence interval), suggesting it is very unlikely that tropical low clouds reduce total global cloud feedback. Because the prediction of positive tropical low-cloud feedback with this approach is consistent with independent evidence from low-cloud feedback studies using high-resolution cloud models, progress is being made in reducing this key climate uncertainty.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Andrews T, Gregory JM, Webb MJ (2015) The dependence of radiative forcing and feedback on evolving patterns of sea surface temperature change in climate models. J Clim 28:1630–1648. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00545.1

  • Bellomo K, Clement A, Mauritsen T, Radel G, Stevens B (2014) Simulating the role of subtropical stratocumulus clouds in driving Pacific climate variability. J Clim 27:5119–5131. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00548.1

  • Bellomo K, Clement A, Mauritsen T, Radel G, Stevens B (2015) The influence of cloud feedbacks on Equatorial Atlantic variability. J Clim 28:2725–2744. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00495.1

  • Blossey PN et al (2013) Marine low cloud sensitivity to an idealized climate change: the CGILS LES intercomparison. J Adv Model Earth Syst. https://doi.org/10.1002/jame.20025

  • Bony S, Dufresne J-L (2005) Marine boundary layer clouds at the heart of tropical cloud feedback uncertainties in climate models. Geophys Res Lett 32:L20806. https://doi.org/10.1029/2005GL023851

  • Bony S, Stevens B, Ament F, Bigorre S, Chazette P, Crewell S, Delanoe J, Emanuel K, Farrell D, Flamant C, Gross S, Hirsch L, Karstensen J, Mayer B, Nuijens L, Ruppert Jr. JH, Sandu I, Siebesma P, Speich S, Szczap F, Totems J, Vogel R, Wendisch M, Wirth M (2017) EUREC4A: a field campaign to elucidate the couplings between clouds, convection and circulation. Surv Geophys. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-017-9428-0

  • Boucher O et al (2013) Clouds and aerosols. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University, Cambridge, pp 571–657

    Google Scholar 

  • Bretherton CS (1993) Understanding Albrecht’s model of trade cumulus cloud fields. J Atmos Sci 50:2264–2283

    Google Scholar 

  • Bretherton CS (2015) Insights into low-latitude cloud feedbacks from high-resolution models. Philos Trans R Soc A. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0415

  • Bretherton CS, Blossey PN (2014) Low cloud reduction in a greenhouse-warmed climate: results from Lagrangian LES of a subtropical marine cloudiness transition. J Adv Model Earth Syst. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013MS000250

  • Bretherton CS, Blossey PN, Jones CR (2013) Mechanisms of marine low cloud sensitivity to idealized climate perturbations: a single-LES exploration extending the CGILS cases. J Adv Model Earth Syst 5:316–337

    Google Scholar 

  • Brient F, Schneider T (2016) Constraints on climate sensitivity from space-based measurements of lowcloud reflection. J Clim 29:5821–5834. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-00897.1

  • Brient F, Schneider T, Tan Z, Bony S, Qu X, Hall A (2016) Shallowness of tropical low clouds as a predictor of climate models’ response to warming. Clim Dyn 47:433–449. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2846-0

  • Brueck M, Nuijens L, Stevens B (2015) On the seasonal and synoptic time-scale variability of the North Atlantic trade wind region and its low-level clouds. J Atmos Sci 72:1428–1446

    Google Scholar 

  • Caldwell PM, Bretherton CS (2009) Response of a subtropical stratocumulus-capped mixed layer to climate and aerosol changes. J Clim 22:20–38. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI1967.1

  • Caldwell PM, Zelinka MD, Taylor KE, Marvel K (2016) Quantifying the sources of intermodel spread in equilibrium climate sensitivity. J Clim 29:513–524. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-00352.1

  • Ceppi P, McCoy DT, Hartmann DL (2016) Observational evidence for a negative shortwave cloud feedback in middle to high latitudes. Geophys Res Lett 43:1331–1339. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL067499

  • Chepfer H, Bony S, Winker D, Cesana G, Dufresne J, Minnis P, Stubenrauch C, Zeng S (2010) The GCMoriented CALIPSO cloud product (CALIPSO-GOCCP). J Geophys 115:D00H16. https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012251

  • Christensen MW, Carri GG, Stephens GL, Cotton WR (2013) Radiative impacts of free-tropospheric clouds on the properties of marine stratocumulus. J Atmos Sci 70:3102–3118. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-12-0287.1

  • Deser C, Alexander MA, Xie S-P, Phillips AS (2010) 2010: sea surface temperature variability: patterns and mechanisms. Ann Rev Mar Sci 2:115–143. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-120408-151453

  • De Szoeke SP, Verlinden KL, Yuter SE, Mechem DB (2016) The time scales of variability of marine low clouds. J Clim 29:6463–6481. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0460.1

  • Dufresne J-L, Bony S (2008) An assessment of the primary sources of spread of global warming estimates from coupled atmosphere–ocean models. J Clim 21:5135–5144. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2239.1

  • Foster MJ, Heidinger A (2013) PATMOS-x: results from a diurnally corrected 30-yr satellite cloud climatology. J Clim 26:414–425. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00666.1

  • George RC, Wood R (2010) Subseasonal variability of low cloud properties over the southeast Pacific Ocean. Atmos Chem Phys 10:4047–4063. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-4047-2010

  • Gordon ND, Klein SA (2014) Low-cloud optical depth feedback in climate models. J Geophys Res Atmos 119:6052–6065

    Google Scholar 

  • Gregory JM, Andrews T (2016) Variation in climate sensitivity and feedback parameters during the historical period. Geophys Res Lett 43:3911–3920. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL068406

  • Gregory JM, Webb M (2008) Tropospheric adjustment induces a cloud component in CO2 forcing. J Clim 21:58–71. https://doi.org/10.1175/2007JCLI1834.1

  • Grise KM, Medeiros B (2017) Understanding the varied influence of mid-latitude jet position on clouds and cloud radiative effects in observations and global climate models. J Clim. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-00295.1 (in press)

  • Hakuba MZ, Folini D, Wild M (2016) On the zonal near-constancy of fractional solar absorption in the atmosphere. J Clim 29:3423–3440. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0277.1

  • Klein SA, Hall A (2015) Emergent constraints for cloud feedbacks. Curr Clim Change Rep 1:276–287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-015-0027-1

  • Klein SA, Hartmann DL (1993) The seasonal cycle of low stratiform clouds. J Clim 6:1587–1606. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1993)006,1587:TSCOLS.2.0.CO;2

  • Klein SA, Hartmann DL, Norris JR (1995) On the relationships among low-cloud structure, sea surface temperature, and atmospheric circulation in the summertime Northeast Pacific. J Clim 8:1140–1155

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein SA (1997) Synoptic variability of low-cloud properties and meteorological parameters in the subtropical trade wind boundary layer. J Clim 10:2018–2039. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1997)010<2018:SVOLCP>2.0.CO;2

  • Loeb N, Wielicki B, Doelling D, Smith G, Keyes D, Kato S, Manalo-Smith N, Wong T (2009) Toward optimal closure of the Earth’s top-of-atmosphere radiation budget. J Clim 22:748–766. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2637.1

  • Mace GG, Zhang Q, Vaughan M, Marchand R, Stephens G, Trepte C, Winker D (2009) A description of hydrometeor layer occurrence statistics derived from the first year of merged Cloudsat and CALIPSO data. J Geophys Res 114:D00A26. https://doi.org/10.1029/2007JD009755

  • Maddux BC, Ackerman SA, Platnick S (2010) Viewing geometry dependencies in MODIS cloud products. J Atmos Ocean Technol 27:1519–1528. https://doi.org/10.1175/2010JTECHA1432.1

  • Marchand R, Ackerman TP (2010) An analysis of cloud cover in multiscale modeling framework global climate model simulations using 4 and 1 km horizontal grids. J Geophys Res 115:D16207. https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD013423

  • Mauger GS, Norris JR (2010) Assessing the impact of meteorological history on subtropical cloud fraction. J Clim 23:2926–2940. https://doi.org/10.1175/2010JCLI3272.1

  • McCoy DT, Eastman R, Hartmann DL, Wood R (2017) The change in low-cloud cover in a warmed climate inferred from AIRS, MODIS, and ECMWF-interim analyses. J Clim. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0734.1 (in press)

  • Myers TA, Norris JR (2013) Observational evidence that enhanced subsidence reduces subtropical marine boundary layer cloudiness. J Clim 26:7507–7524. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00736.1

  • Myers TA, Norris JR (2016) Reducing the uncertainty in subtropical cloud feedback. Geophys Res Lett 43:2144–2148. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015gl067416

  • Norris JR, Evan AT (2015) Empirical removal of artifacts from the ISCCP and PATMOS-x satellite cloud records. J Atmos Ocean Technol 32:691–702. https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-14-00058.1

  • Norris JR, Iacobellis SF (2005) North Pacific cloud feedbacks inferred from synoptic-scale dynamic and thermodynamic relationships. J Clim 18:4862–4878. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3558.1

  • Nuijens L, Medeiros B, Sandu I, Ahlgrimm M (2015) Observed and modeled patterns of covariability between low-level cloudiness and the structure of the trade-wind layer. J Adv Model Earth Syst 7:1741–1764. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015MS000483

  • Pincus R, Platnick S, Ackerman SA, Hemler RS, Hofmann RJP (2012) Reconciling simulated and observed views of clouds: MODIS, ISCCP, and the limits of instrument simulators. J Clim 25:4699–4720. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00267.1

  • Pincus et al (this issue) The distribution of water vapor over low-latitude oceans: current best estimates, errors, and impacts. Surv Geophy (in press)

    Google Scholar 

  • Platnick S, King MD, Ackerman SA, Menzel WP, Baum BA, Riedi JC, Frey RA (2003) The MODIS cloud products: algorithms and examples from Terra. IEEE Trans Geosci Remote Sens 41:459–473. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2002.808301

  • Qu X, Hall A, Klein SA, Caldwell PM (2014) On the spread of changes in marine low cloud cover in climate model simulations of the 21st century. Clim Dyn 42:2603–2626. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1945-z

  • Qu X, Hall A, Klein SA, Caldwell PM (2015a) The strength of the tropical inversion and its response to climate change in 18 CMIP5 models. Clim Dyn 45:375–396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2441-9

  • Qu X, Hall A, Klein SA, DeAngelis AM (2015b) Positive tropical marine low-cloud cover feedback inferred from cloud-controlling factors. Geophys Res Lett 42:7767–7775. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015gl065627

  • Rieck M, Nuijens L, Stevens B (2012) Marine boundary layer cloud feedbacks in a constant relative humidity atmosphere. J Atmos Sci 69:2538–2550

    Google Scholar 

  • Rossow WB, Schiffer RA (1999) Advances in understanding clouds from ISCCP. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 80:2261–2287

    Google Scholar 

  • Rugenstein MAA et al (2016) Multiannual ocean-atmosphere adjustments to radiative forcing. J Clim 29:5643–5659. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0312.1

  • Schubert WH, Wakefield JS, Steiner EJ, Cox SK (1979) Marine stratocumulus convection. Part II: horizontally inhomogeneous solutions. J Atmos Sci 36:1308–1324

    Google Scholar 

  • Seethala C, Norris JR, Myers TA (2015) How has subtropical stratocumulus and associated meteorology changed since the 1980s? J Clim 28:8396–8410. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0120.1

  • Shea DJ, Trenberth KE, Reynolds RW (1992) A global monthly sea surface temperature climatology. J Clim 5:987–1001

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherwood SC, Bony S, DuFresne J-L (2014) Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing. Nature 505:37–42. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12829

  • Sherwood SC et al (2015) Adjustments in the forcing-feedback framework for understanding climate change. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 96:228–277. https://doi.org/10.1175/Bams-D-13-00167.1

  • Stevens B, Brenguier J-L (2009) Cloud-controlling factors: low clouds. In: Heintzenberg J, Charlson R (eds) Clouds in the perturbed climate system. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 173–196

    Google Scholar 

  • Stocker TF et al (2013) Technical summary. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University, Cambridge, pp 33–115

    Google Scholar 

  • Terai CR, Klein SA, Zelinka MD (2016) Constraining the low-cloud optical depth feedback at middle and high latitudes using satellite observations. J Geophys Res Atmos 121:9696–9716. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025233

  • van der Dussen JJ, de Roode SR, Gesso SD, Siebesma AP (2015) An LES model study of the influence of the free tropospheric thermodynamic conditions on the stratocumulus response to a climate perturbation. J Adv Model Earth Syst 7:670–691. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014MS000380

  • Vial J, Bony S, Stevens B, Vogel R (2017) Mechanisms and model diversity of trade-wind shallow cumulus cloud feedbacks: a review. Surv Geophys. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-017-9418-2

  • Vogel R, Nuijens L, Stevens B (2016) The role of precipitation and spatial organization in the response to trade-wind clouds to warming. J Adv Model Earth Syst 8:843–862. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015MS000568

  • Webb M, Lambert FH, Gregory JM (2013) Origins of difference in climate sensitivity, forcing, and feedback in climate models. Clim Dyn 40:677–707. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1336-x

  • Wood R, Bretherton CS (2006) On the relationship between stratiform low cloud cover and lower-tropospheric stability. J Clim 19:6425–6432. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI3988.1

  • Zelinka MD, Klein SA, Hartmann DL (2012) Computing and partitioning cloud feedbacks using cloud property histograms. Part II: attribution to the nature of cloud changes. J Clim 25:3736–3754

    Google Scholar 

  • Zelinka MD, Zhou C, Klein SA (2016) Insights from a refined decomposition of cloud feedbacks. Geophys Res Lett 43:9249–9259. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069917

  • Zhai C, Jiang JH, Su H (2015) Long-term cloud change imprinted in seasonal cloud variation: more evidence of high climate sensitivity. Geophys Res Lett 42:8729–8737. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL065911

  • Zhang Y, Rossow WB, Lacis AA, Oinas V, Mishchenko MI (2004) Calculation of radiative fluxes from the surface to top of atmosphere based on ISCCP and other global data sets: refinements of the radiative transfer model and the input data. J Geophys Res 109:D19105. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JD004457

  • Zhang M, Bretherton CS, Blossey PN, Bony S, Brient F, Golaz J-C (2012) The CGILS experimental design to investigate low cloud feedbacks in general circulation models by using single-column and largeeddy simulation models. J Adv Model Earth Syst 4:M12001. https://doi.org/10.1029/2012MS000182

  • Zhang M et al (2013) CGILS: results from the first phase of an international project to understand the physical mechanisms of low cloud feedbacks in single column models. J Adv Model Earth Syst. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013MS000246

  • Zhou C, Zelinka MD, Klein SA (2016) Impact of decadal cloud variations on the Earth’s energy budget. Nat Geosci 9:871–874. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2828

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cloud Processes Research Group, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 7000 East Avenue, L-103, Livermore, CA, 94551, USA

    Stephen A. Klein

  2. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Alex Hall

  3. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    Joel R. Norris

  4. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA

    Robert Pincus

  5. Physical Sciences Division, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO, 80305, USA

    Robert Pincus

Authors
  1. Stephen A. Klein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alex Hall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Joel R. Norris
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Robert Pincus
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stephen A. Klein .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder , Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Robert Pincus

  2. Atmospheric Sciences, NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Sciences, HAMPTON, Virginia, USA

    David Winker

  3. Institute Pierre Simon Laplace, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique , Paris, France

    Sandrine Bony

  4. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology , Hamburg, Germany

    Bjorn Stevens

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Klein, S.A., Hall, A., Norris, J.R., Pincus, R. (2017). Low-Cloud Feedbacks from Cloud-Controlling Factors: A Review. In: Pincus, R., Winker, D., Bony, S., Stevens, B. (eds) Shallow Clouds, Water Vapor, Circulation, and Climate Sensitivity. Space Sciences Series of ISSI, vol 65. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77273-8_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation