Advances in Earth Science ›› 2005, Vol. 20 ›› Issue (2): 207-215. doi: 10.11867/j.issn.1001-8166.2005.02.0207

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AN EVALUATION OF CLOUD RADIATIVE FEEDBACK MECHANISMS IN CLIMATE MODELS

WANG Fang 1,2;DING Yihui 3   

  1. 1.Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China;
    2.Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081,China;
    3.National Climate Center,CMA,Beijing 100081,China
  • Received:2004-01-29 Revised:2004-06-28 Online:2005-02-25 Published:2005-02-25

WANG Fang;DING Yihui. AN EVALUATION OF CLOUD RADIATIVE FEEDBACK MECHANISMS IN CLIMATE MODELS[J]. Advances in Earth Science, 2005, 20(2): 207-215.

Cloud plays an important role in the radiative budget of climate system, and cloud-radiation parameterization is one of the main sources of uncertainty in climate models. Cloud can impact radiation through various ways, resulting in feedbacks with different sign and magnitude. Researches show that model climate is very sensitive to cloud-radiation parameterization schemes. As predictable cloud water content is introduced to models, the simulation of cloud-radiation processes is improved,though significant difference from observations still exists. Generally, the introduction of phase change of cloud water and interactive cloud droplet size can produce negative feedbacks, while the cloud optical depth feedback and cloud amount feedback are positive in climate change. Cloud-radiation has a close connection with large-scale background of climate, especially the remarkable SST effect on radiation balance. We also summarize the main problems of present cloud-radiation researches and give some proposals.

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