Accessibility navigation


Monitoring present day changes in water vapour and the radiative energy balance using satellite data, reanalyses and models

Allan, R. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0264-9447 (2007) Monitoring present day changes in water vapour and the radiative energy balance using satellite data, reanalyses and models. Joint 2007 EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference and the 15th Satellite Meteorology & Oceanography Conference of the American Meteorological Society, P.50. ISSN 1011-3932

[img]
Preview
Text (EUMETSAT conference proceedings paper) - Published Version
· Please see our End User Agreement before downloading.

1MB

It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing.

Official URL: http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/AboutEUMETSAT/Pu...

Abstract/Summary

A combination of satellite data, reanalysis products and climate models are combined to monitor changes in water vapour, clear-sky radiative cooling of the atmosphere and precipitation over the period 1979-2006. Climate models are able to simulate observed increases in column integrated water vapour (CWV) with surface temperature (Ts) over the ocean. Changes in the observing system lead to spurious variability in water vapour and clear-sky longwave radiation in reanalysis products. Nevertheless all products considered exhibit a robust increase in clear-sky longwave radiative cooling from the atmosphere to the surface; clear-sky longwave radiative cooling of the atmosphere is found to increase with Ts at the rate of ~4 Wm-2 K-1 over tropical ocean regions of mean descending vertical motion. Precipitation (P) is tightly coupled to atmospheric radiative cooling rates and this implies an increase in P with warming at a slower rate than the observed increases in CWV. Since convective precipitation depends on moisture convergence, the above implies enhanced precipitation over convective regions and reduced precipitation over convectively suppressed regimes. To quantify this response, observed and simulated changes in precipitation rate are analysed separately over regions of mean ascending and descending vertical motion over the tropics. The observed response is found to be substantially larger than the model simulations and climate change projections. It is currently not clear whether this is due to deficiencies in model parametrizations or errors in satellite retrievals.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:No
Divisions:Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Environmental Systems Science Centre
ID Code:806
Additional Information:Joint 2007 EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference and the 15th Satellite Meteorology & Oceanography Conference of the American Meteorological Society Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 24-28 September 2007 EUMETSAT P.50 ISBN 92-9110-079-X
Publisher:EUMETSAT

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

University Staff: Request a correction | Centaur Editors: Update this record

Page navigation