Summary for policymakers Technical summary 1. The climate system - an overview 2. Observed climate variability and change 3. The carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2 4. Atmospheric chemistry and greenhouse gases 5. Aerosols, their direct and indirect effects 6. Radiative forcing of climate change 7. Physical climate processes and feedbacks 8. Model evaluation 9. Projections of future climate change 10. Regional climate simulation - evaluation and projections 11. Changes in sea level 12. Detection of climate change and attribution of causes 13. Climate scenario development 14. Advancing our understanding Glossary Index Appendix.

Climate change 2001: the scientific basis

A rapid and accurate radiative transfer model (RRTM) for climate applications has been developed and the results extensively evaluated. The current version of RRTM calculates fluxes and cooling rates for the longwave spectral region (10–3000 cm−1) for an arbitrary clear atmosphere. The molecular species treated in the model are water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide, and the common halocarbons. The radiative transfer in RRTM is performed using the correlated-k method: the k distributions are attained directly from the LBLRTM line-by-line model, which connects the absorption coefficients used by RRTM to high-resolution radiance validations done with observations. Refined methods have been developed for treating bands containing gases with overlapping absorption, for the determination of values of the Planck function appropriate for use in the correlated-k approach, and for the inclusion of minor absorbing species in a band. The flux and cooling rate results of RRTM are linked to measurement through the use of LBLRTM, which has been substantially validated with observations. Validations of RRTM using LBLRTM have been performed for the midlatitude summer, tropical, midlatitude winter, subarctic winter, and four atmospheres from the Spectral Radiance Experiment campaign. On the basis of these validations the longwave accuracy of RRTM for any atmosphere is as follows: 0.6 W m−2 (relative to LBLRTM) for net flux in each band at all altitudes, with a total (10–3000 cm−1) error of less than 1.0 W m−2 at any altitude; 0.07 K d−1 for total cooling rate error in the troposphere and lower stratosphere, and 0.75 K d−1 in the upper stratosphere and above. Other comparisons have been performed on RRTM using LBLRTM to gauge its sensitivity to changes in the abundance of specific species, including the halocarbons and carbon dioxide. The radiative forcing due to doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide is attained with an accuracy of 0.24 W m−2, an error of less than 5%. The speed of execution of RRTM compares favorably with that of other rapid radiation models, indicating that the model is suitable for use in general circulation models.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/97JD00237

Radiative transfer for inhomogeneous atmospheres: RRTM, a validated correlated-k model for the longwave

Black carbon aerosol plays a unique and important role in Earth's climate system. Black carbon is a type of carbonaceous material with a unique combination of physical properties. This assessment provides an evaluation of black-carbon climate forcing that is comprehensive in its inclusion of all known and relevant processes and that is quantitative in providing best estimates and uncertainties of the main forcing terms: direct solar absorption; influence on liquid, mixed phase, and ice clouds; and deposition on snow and ice. These effects are calculated with climate models, but when possible, they are evaluated with both microphysical measurements and field observations. Predominant sources are combustion related, namely, fossil fuels for transportation, solid fuels for industrial and residential uses, and open burning of biomass. Total global emissions of black carbon using bottom-up inventory methods are 7500 Gg yr−1 in the year 2000 with an uncertainty range of 2000 to 29000. However, global atmospheric absorption attributable to black carbon is too low in many models and should be increased by a factor of almost 3. After this scaling, the best estimate for the industrial-era (1750 to 2005) direct radiative forcing of atmospheric black carbon is +0.71 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of (+0.08, +1.27) W m−2. Total direct forcing by all black carbon sources, without subtracting the preindustrial background, is estimated as +0.88 (+0.17, +1.48) W m−2. Direct radiative forcing alone does not capture important rapid adjustment mechanisms. A framework is described and used for quantifying climate forcings, including rapid adjustments. The best estimate of industrial-era climate forcing of black carbon through all forcing mechanisms, including clouds and cryosphere forcing, is +1.1 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of +0.17 to +2.1 W m−2. Thus, there is a very high probability that black carbon emissions, independent of co-emitted species, have a positive forcing and warm the climate. We estimate that black carbon, with a total climate forcing of +1.1 W m−2, is the second most important human emission in terms of its climate forcing in the present-day atmosphere; only carbon dioxide is estimated to have a greater forcing. Sources that emit black carbon also emit other short-lived species that may either cool or warm climate. Climate forcings from co-emitted species are estimated and used in the framework described herein. When the principal effects of short-lived co-emissions, including cooling agents such as sulfur dioxide, are included in net forcing, energy-related sources (fossil fuel and biofuel) have an industrial-era climate forcing of +0.22 (−0.50 to +1.08) W m−2 during the first year after emission. For a few of these sources, such as diesel engines and possibly residential biofuels, warming is strong enough that eliminating all short-lived emissions from these sources would reduce net climate forcing (i.e., produce cooling). When open burning emissions, which emit high levels of organic matter, are included in the total, the best estimate of net industrial-era climate forcing by all short-lived species from black-carbon-rich sources becomes slightly negative (−0.06 W m−2 with 90% uncertainty bounds of −1.45 to +1.29 W m−2). The uncertainties in net climate forcing from black-carbon-rich sources are substantial, largely due to lack of knowledge about cloud interactions with both black carbon and co-emitted organic carbon. In prioritizing potential black-carbon mitigation actions, non-science factors, such as technical feasibility, costs, policy design, and implementation feasibility play important roles. The major sources of black carbon are presently in different stages with regard to the feasibility for near-term mitigation. This assessment, by evaluating the large number and complexity of the associated physical and radiative processes in black-carbon climate forcing, sets a baseline from which to improve future climate forcing estimates.

/pdf/bounding-the-role-of-black-carbon-in-the-climate-system-a-1fc3novd9r.pdf

Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: A scientific assessment

Abstract A two-dimensional version of the Pennsylvania State University mesoscale model has been applied to Winter Monsoon Experiment data in order to simulate the diurnally occurring convection observed over the South China Sea. The domain includes a representation of part of Borneo as well as the sea so that the model can simulate the initiation of convection. Also included in the model are parameterizations of mesoscale ice phase and moisture processes and longwave and shortwave radiation with a diurnal cycle. This allows use of the model to test the relative importance of various heating mechanisms to the stratiform cloud deck, which typically occupies several hundred kilometers of the domain. Frank and Cohen's cumulus parameterization scheme is employed to represent vital unresolved vertical transports in the convective area. The major conclusions are: Ice phase processes are important in determining the level of maximum large-scale heating and vertical motion because there is a strong anvil componen...

Numerical study of convection observed during the Winter Monsoon Experiment using a mesoscale two-dimensional model [presentation]

Increases in aerosol concentrations over the oceans may increase the amount of low-level cloudiness through a reduction in drizzle—a process that regulates the liquid-water content and the energetics of shallow marine clouds. The resulting increase in the global albedo would be in addition to the increase due to enhancement in reflectivity associated with a decrease in droplet size and would contribute to a cooling of the earth9s surface.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/245/4923/1227.full.pdf

Aerosols, cloud microphysics, and fractional cloudiness.

Accurate estimates of albedos are required in climate modeling. Accurate and simple schemes for radiative transfer within canopy are required for these estimates, but severe limitations exist. This paper developed a four-stream solar radiative transfer model and coupled it with a land surface process model. The radiative model uses a four-stream approximation method as in the atmosphere to obtain analytic solutions of the basic equation of canopy radiative transfer. As an analytical model, the four-stream radiative transfer model can be easily applied ecien tly to improve the parameterization of land surface radiation in climate models. Our four-stream solar radiative transfer model is based on a two-stream short wave radiative transfer model. It can simulate short wave solar radiative transfer within canopy according to the relevant theory in the atmosphere. Each parameter of the basic radiative transfer equation of canopy has special geometry and optical characters of leaves or canopy. The upward or downward radiative uxes are related to the diuse phase function, the G-function, leaf reectivit y and transmission, leaf area index, and the solar angle of the incident beam. The four-stream simulation is compared with that of the two-stream model. The four-stream model is proved successful through its consistent modeling of canopy albedo at any solar incident angle. In order to compare and nd dierences between the results predicted by the four- and two-stream models, a number of numerical experiments are performed through examining the eects of dieren t leaf area indices, leaf angle distributions, optical properties of leaves, and ground surface conditions on the canopy albedo. Parallel experiments show that the canopy albedos predicted by the two models dier signican tly when the leaf angle distribution is spherical and vertical. The results also show that the dierence is particularly great for dieren t incident solar beams. One additional experiment is carried out to evaluate the simulations of the BATS land surface model coupled with the two- and four-stream radiative transfer models. Station observations in 1998 are used for comparison. The results indicate that the simulation of BATS coupled with the four-stream model is the best because the surface absorbed solar radiation from the four-stream model is the closest to the observation.

Four-stream Radiative Transfer Parameterization Scheme in a Land Surface Process Model

Y. H. Mao, Q. B. Li, D. K. Henze, Z. Jiang, D. B. A. Jones, M. Kopacz, C. He, L. Qi, M. Gao, W.-M. Hao, and K.-N. Liou Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada NOAA Climate Program Office, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20910, USA Fire Sciences Laboratory, US Forest Service, Missoula, MT, 59808, USA now at: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91109, USA

/pdf/variational-estimates-of-black-carbon-emissions-in-the-1yfdg36zt4.pdf

Variational estimates of black carbon emissions in the western United States

The effect of surface polarization on the intensity and linear polarization patterns of sunlight in an atmosphere containing a dust aerosol layer is investigated by means of the adding principle for vector radiative transfer in which the surface is treated as a layer without transmission. We present a number of computational results and analysis for three cases: Lambertian (unpolarized isotropic), polarized isotropic, and polarized anisotropic surfaces. An approach has been developed to reconstruct anisotropic 2 � 2 phase matrix elements on the basis of bidirectional-reflectance and linear-polarization patterns that have been measured from polarimeters over various land surfaces. The effect of surface polarization on the simulated intensity patterns over a dust layer is shown to be negligible. However, the differences in the simulated linear polarization patterns between commonly assumed Lambertian and polarized anisotropic cases are substantial for dust optical depths between 0.1 and 0.5 and for surface albedos of 0.07 and 0.4, particularly in backward directions.

/pdf/intensity-and-polarization-of-dust-aerosols-over-polarized-1egkhhq0p6.pdf

Intensity and polarization of dust aerosols over polarized anisotropic surfaces

We explore the feasibility of deriving atmospheric infrared cooling rates by direct inversion of radiances observed by satellites from space. In order to convert radiances to fluxes and achieve vertical profiling at the same time, we show that it is necessary to combine radiances from narrow channels with radiances averaged over spectral bands. We demonstrate that the vertical integral of the cooling rate in the spectral band, convolved with a kernel function associated with the narrow channel, can be related to a weighted sum of the channel and band radiances. The band radiance must be evaluated at a specific zenith angle, which is a result of use of the mean value theorem. With known kernel functions, the combined radiances may be inverted to obtain the cooling rate profile. These results are derived from use of a random model for the transmittance in its strong-and weak-line limits. The results are similar in the two limits leading us to conclude that there are expressions that are approximately valid over the entire range of transmittance. We show by numerical methods that this conclusion is correct and apply the retrieval technique successfully to get the cooling rate profile in the rotational band of water vapor.

/pdf/exploration-of-the-remote-sounding-of-infrared-cooling-rates-3d5kh5uspu.pdf

Exploration of the remote sounding of infrared cooling rates due to water vapor

Here we report a preliminary investigation of temperature retrieval utilizing the Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Passive Microwave Temperature Sounder (SSM/T) data under clear, cloudy and precipitating atmosphere conditions. Within the limited case studies and in the context of a statistical temperature retrieval program, we find that the recovered temperatures close to the surface suffer increased degradation as the observed rainfall rate increases when the temperature profiles are compared with radiosonde data. Differences between retrieved and observed temperatures near the surface are found to be as large as 15 K. Nonprecipitating clouds appear to have little effect on the temperature retrieval program from microwave observations.

Kuo-Nan Liou

Papers

Four-stream Radiative Transfer Parameterization Scheme in a Land Surface Process Model

Variational estimates of black carbon emissions in the western United States

Intensity and polarization of dust aerosols over polarized anisotropic surfaces

Exploration of the remote sounding of infrared cooling rates due to water vapor

Some Examples of the Effects of Clouds and Precipitation on the Temperature Profile Retrieval for DMSP SSM/T Microwave Sounders