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1.
Timothy Andrews Jonathan M. Gregory Piers M. Forster Mark J. Webb 《Surveys in Geophysics》2012,33(3-4):619-635
Understanding the role of clouds in climate change remains a considerable challenge. Traditionally, this challenge has been framed in terms of understanding cloud feedback. However, recent work suggests that under increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, clouds not only amplify or dampen climate change through global feedback processes, but also through rapid (days to weeks) tropospheric temperature and land surface adjustments. In this article, we use the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model HadGSM1 to review these recent developments and assess their impact on radiative forcing and equilibrium climate sensitivity. We estimate that cloud adjustment contributes ~0.8?K to the 4.4?K equilibrium climate sensitivity of this particular model. We discuss the methods used to evaluate cloud adjustments, highlight the mechanisms and processes involved and identify low level cloudiness as a key cloud type. Looking forward, we discuss the outstanding issues, such as the application to transient forcing scenarios. We suggest that the upcoming CMIP5 multi-model database will allow a comprehensive assessment of the significance of cloud adjustments in fully coupled atmosphere–ocean-general-circulation models for the first time, and that future research should exploit this opportunity to understand cloud adjustments/feedbacks in non-idealised transient climate change scenarios. 相似文献
2.
Jasper Kirkby 《Surveys in Geophysics》2007,28(5-6):333-375
Among the most puzzling questions in climate change is that of solar-climate variability, which has attracted the attention of scientists for more than two centuries. Until recently, even the existence of solar-climate variability has been controversial—perhaps because the observations had largely involved correlations between climate and the sunspot cycle that had persisted for only a few decades. Over the last few years, however, diverse reconstructions of past climate change have revealed clear associations with cosmic ray variations recorded in cosmogenic isotope archives, providing persuasive evidence for solar or cosmic ray forcing of the climate. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established. Although this remains a mystery, observations suggest that cloud cover may be influenced by cosmic rays, which are modulated by the solar wind and, on longer time scales, by the geomagnetic field and by the galactic environment of Earth. Two different classes of microphysical mechanisms have been proposed to connect cosmic rays with clouds: firstly, an influence of cosmic rays on the production of cloud condensation nuclei and, secondly, an influence of cosmic rays on the global electrical circuit in the atmosphere and, in turn, on ice nucleation and other cloud microphysical processes. Considerable progress on understanding ion–aerosol–cloud processes has been made in recent years, and the results are suggestive of a physically-plausible link between cosmic rays, clouds and climate. However, a concerted effort is now required to carry out definitive laboratory measurements of the fundamental physical and chemical processes involved, and to evaluate their climatic significance with dedicated field observations and modelling studies. 相似文献
3.
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 cloud-controlling 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. 相似文献
4.
Using the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) general circulation model (CCM2), a suite of alternative cloud radiation parameterizations has been tested. Our methodology relies on perpetual July integrations driven by ±2 K sea surface temperature forcing. The tested parameterizations include relative humidity based clouds and versions of schemes involving a prognostic cloud water budget. We are especially interested in testing the effect of cloud optical thickness feedbacks on global climate sensitivity. All schemes exhibit negative cloud radiation feedbacks, i.e., cloud moderates the global warming. However, these negative net cloud radiation feedbacks consist of quite different shortwave and longwave components between a scheme with interactive cloud radiative properties and several schemes with specified cloud water paths. An increase in cloud water content in the warmer climate leads to optically thicker middle- and low-level clouds and in turn negative shortwave feedbacks for the interactive radiative scheme, while a decrease in cloud amount leads to a positive shortwave feedback for the other schemes. For the longwave feedbacks, a decrease in high effective cloudiness for the schemes without interactive radiative properties leads to a negative feedback, while no distinct changes in effective high cloudiness and the resulting feedback are exhibited for the scheme with interactive radiative properties. The resulting magnitude of negative net cloud radiation feed-back is largest for the scheme with interactive radiative properties. Even though the simulated values of cloud radiative forcing for the present climate using this method differ most from the observational data, the approach shows great promise for the future. 相似文献
5.
Anthony D. Del Genio 《Surveys in Geophysics》2012,33(3-4):637-656
Convective cloud variability on many times scales can be viewed as having three major components: a suppressed phase of shallow and congestus clouds, a disturbed phase of deep convective clouds, and a mature phase of transition to stratiform upper-level clouds. Cumulus parameterization development has focused primarily on the second phase until recently. Consequently, many parameterizations are not sufficiently sensitive to variations in tropospheric humidity. This shortcoming may affect global climate model simulations of climate sensitivity to external forcings, the continental diurnal cycle of clouds and precipitation, and intraseasonal precipitation variability. The lack of sensitivity can be traced in part to underestimated entrainment of environmental air into rising convective clouds and insufficient evaporation of rain into the environment. As a result, the parameterizations produce deep convection too easily while stabilizing the environment too quickly to allow the effects of convective mesoscale organization to occur. Recent versions of some models have increased their sensitivity to tropospheric humidity and improved some aspects of their variability, but a parameterization of mesoscale organization is still absent from most models. Evidence about the effect of these uncertainties on climate change projections suggests that climate modelers should make improved simulation of high and convective clouds as high a priority as better representations of low clouds. 相似文献
6.
Shallow cumulus clouds in the trade-wind regions are at the heart of the long standing uncertainty in climate sensitivity estimates. In current climate models, cloud feedbacks are strongly influenced by cloud-base cloud amount in the trades. Therefore, understanding the key factors controlling cloudiness near cloud-base in shallow convective regimes has emerged as an important topic of investigation. We review physical understanding of these key controlling factors and discuss the value of the different approaches that have been developed so far, based on global and high-resolution model experimentations and process-oriented analyses across a range of models and for observations. The trade-wind cloud feedbacks appear to depend on two important aspects: (1) how cloudiness near cloud-base is controlled by the local interplay between turbulent, convective and radiative processes; (2) how these processes interact with their surrounding environment and are influenced by mesoscale organization. Our synthesis of studies that have explored these aspects suggests that the large diversity of model responses is related to fundamental differences in how the processes controlling trade cumulus operate in models, notably, whether they are parameterized or resolved. In models with parameterized convection, cloudiness near cloud-base is very sensitive to the vigor of convective mixing in response to changes in environmental conditions. This is in contrast with results from high-resolution models, which suggest that cloudiness near cloud-base is nearly invariant with warming and independent of large-scale environmental changes. Uncertainties are difficult to narrow using current observations, as the trade cumulus variability and its relation to large-scale environmental factors strongly depend on the time and/or spatial scales at which the mechanisms are evaluated. New opportunities for testing physical understanding of the factors controlling shallow cumulus cloud responses using observations and high-resolution modeling on large domains are discussed. 相似文献
7.
Observing and Modeling Earth’s Energy Flows 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
This article reviews, from the authors’ perspective, progress in observing and modeling energy flows in Earth’s climate system. Emphasis is placed on the state of understanding of Earth’s energy flows and their susceptibility to perturbations, with particular emphasis on the roles of clouds and aerosols. More accurate measurements of the total solar irradiance and the rate of change of ocean enthalpy help constrain individual components of the energy budget at the top of the atmosphere to within ±2 W m?2. The measurements demonstrate that Earth reflects substantially less solar radiation and emits more terrestrial radiation than was believed even a decade ago. Active remote sensing is helping to constrain the surface energy budget, but new estimates of downwelling surface irradiance that benefit from such methods are proving difficult to reconcile with existing precipitation climatologies. Overall, the energy budget at the surface is much more uncertain than at the top of the atmosphere. A decade of high-precision measurements of the energy budget at the top of the atmosphere is providing new opportunities to track Earth’s energy flows on timescales ranging from days to years, and at very high spatial resolution. The measurements show that the principal limitation in the estimate of secular trends now lies in the natural variability of the Earth system itself. The forcing-feedback-response framework, which has developed to understand how changes in Earth’s energy flows affect surface temperature, is reviewed in light of recent work that shows fast responses (adjustments) of the system are central to the definition of the effective forcing that results from a change in atmospheric composition. In many cases, the adjustment, rather than the characterization of the compositional perturbation (associated, for instance, with changing greenhouse gas concentrations, or aerosol burdens), limits accurate determination of the radiative forcing. Changes in clouds contribute importantly to this adjustment and thus contribute both to uncertainty in estimates of radiative forcing and to uncertainty in the response. Models are indispensable to calculation of the adjustment of the system to a compositional change but are known to be flawed in their representation of clouds. Advances in tracking Earth’s energy flows and compositional changes on daily through decadal timescales are shown to provide both a critical and constructive framework for advancing model development and evaluation. 相似文献
8.
Sandrine Bony Bjorn Stevens Felix Ament Sebastien Bigorre Patrick Chazette Susanne Crewell Julien Delanoë Kerry Emanuel David Farrell Cyrille Flamant Silke Gross Lutz Hirsch Johannes Karstensen Bernhard Mayer Louise Nuijens James H. RuppertJr. Irina Sandu Pier Siebesma Sabrina Speich Frédéric Szczap Julien Totems Raphaela Vogel Manfred Wendisch Martin Wirth 《Surveys in Geophysics》2017,38(6):1529-1568
Trade-wind cumuli constitute the cloud type with the highest frequency of occurrence on Earth, and it has been shown that their sensitivity to changing environmental conditions will critically influence the magnitude and pace of future global warming. Research over the last decade has pointed out the importance of the interplay between clouds, convection and circulation in controling this sensitivity. Numerical models represent this interplay in diverse ways, which translates into different responses of trade-cumuli to climate perturbations. Climate models predict that the area covered by shallow cumuli at cloud base is very sensitive to changes in environmental conditions, while process models suggest the opposite. To understand and resolve this contradiction, we propose to organize a field campaign aimed at quantifying the physical properties of trade-cumuli (e.g., cloud fraction and water content) as a function of the large-scale environment. Beyond a better understanding of clouds-circulation coupling processes, the campaign will provide a reference data set that may be used as a benchmark for advancing the modelling and the satellite remote sensing of clouds and circulation. It will also be an opportunity for complementary investigations such as evaluating model convective parameterizations or studying the role of ocean mesoscale eddies in air–sea interactions and convective organization. 相似文献
9.
An atmosphere–ocean climate box model is used to examine the influence of cloud feedback on the equilibria of the climate system. The model consists of three non-linear ordinary differential equations, which are simplified forms of the first law of thermodynamics for the atmosphere and ocean and the continuity equation for the atmospheric component of the hydrological cycle. The mass continuity equation expresses the cloud liquid water content as a function of the evaporation rate from the ocean surface and the precipitation rate. Cloud formation releases latent heat. The model clouds also absorb solar energy at a rate consistent with recent findings. The model simulates snow–ice albedo feedback, water vapour feedback and cloud feedback. The global mean precipitation and surface temperature are analysed as they respond to enhanced greenhouse warming. Model results show that cloud feedback can lead to the occurrence of multiple climate equilibria. Some of these are warmer than the present equilibrium, with increased precipitation, while others are colder, with reduced precipitation. If the cloud feedback is weak, enhanced greenhouse forcing leads to a small alteration of the present equilibrium. If the cloud feedback is strong enough, the climate system can be forced into a warmer and wetter equilibrium. 相似文献
10.
Amin R. Nehrir Christoph Kiemle Mathew D. Lebsock Gottfried Kirchengast Stefan A. Buehler Ulrich Löhnert Cong-Liang Liu Peter C. Hargrave Maria Barrera-Verdejo David M. Winker 《Surveys in Geophysics》2017,38(6):1445-1482
A deeper understanding of how clouds will respond to a warming climate is one of the outstanding challenges in climate science. Uncertainties in the response of clouds, and particularly shallow clouds, have been identified as the dominant source of the discrepancy in model estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity. As the community gains a deeper understanding of the many processes involved, there is a growing appreciation of the critical role played by fluctuations in water vapor and the coupling of water vapor and atmospheric circulations. Reduction of uncertainties in cloud-climate feedbacks and convection initiation as well as improved understanding of processes governing these effects will result from profiling of water vapor in the lower troposphere with improved accuracy and vertical resolution compared to existing airborne and space-based measurements. This paper highlights new technologies and improved measurement approaches for measuring lower tropospheric water vapor and their expected added value to current observations. Those include differential absorption lidar and radar, microwave occultation between low-Earth orbiters, and hyperspectral microwave remote sensing. Each methodology is briefly explained, and measurement capabilities as well as the current technological readiness for aircraft and satellite implementation are specified. Potential synergies between the technologies are discussed, actual examples hereof are given, and future perspectives are explored. Based on technical maturity and the foreseen near-mid-term development path of the various discussed measurement approaches, we find that improved measurements of water vapor throughout the troposphere would greatly benefit from the combination of differential absorption lidar focusing on the lower troposphere with passive remote sensors constraining the upper-tropospheric humidity. 相似文献
11.
基于2007—2010年的CloudSat卫星观测数据,以云层液态水路径为指标将层积云的发展过程划分为五个阶段,对比研究了中国东部降水与非降水层积云发展过程中云微物理特征和云微物理机制的演变,并分析了其海陆差异.研究表明:非降水层积云中,云滴增长主要通过凝结过程完成,但云滴的凝结增长有限,难以形成降水,在非降水层积云发展的旺盛阶段,云层中上部云滴发生较弱的碰并过程.降水层积云中云滴碰并增长活跃,当云层液态水路径小于500 g·m~(-2)时,云滴在从云顶下落至云底的过程中持续碰并,并在云底附近出现云水向雨水的转化;当降水层积云液态水路径超过500 g·m~(-2)时,云滴碰并增长主要发生在云层上部,在云层中部,云液态水含量、液态粒子数浓度和液态粒子有效半径达到最大,云水向雨水的转化最为活跃.层积云微物理特征的海陆差异主要是由海陆上空气溶胶浓度和云中上升气流强度不同导致的.在非降水层积云中下部,陆地丰富的气溶胶为云滴凝结增长提供了充足的云凝结核,因而云微物理量的量值在陆地上空更大,而在云层中上部,云滴凝结增长达到极限,海洋充足的水汽输送使云微物理量的量值在海洋上空更大.当降水层积云液态水路径大于500 g·m~(-2)时,陆地层积云中更强的上升气流使大量云滴在云层中上部累积滞留,云滴碰并增长活跃,云层中上部云微物理量的量值在陆地上空更大. 相似文献
12.
Through their multiple interactions with radiation, clouds have an important impact on the climate. Nonetheless, the simulation of clouds in climate models is still coarse. The present evolution of modeling tends to a more realistic representation of the liquid water content; thus the problem of its subgrid scale distribution is crucial. For a convective cloud field observed during ICE 89, Landsat TM data (resolution: 30m) have been analyzed in order to quantify the respective influences of both the horizontal distribution of liquid water content and cloud shape on the Earth radiation budget. The cloud field was found to be rather well-represented by a stochastic distribution of hemi-ellipsoidal clouds whose horizontal aspect ratio is close to 2 and whose vertical aspect ratio decreases as the cloud cell area increases. For that particular cloud field, neglecting the influence of the cloud shape leads to an over-estimate of the outgoing longwave flux; in the shortwave, it leads to an over-estimate of the reflected flux for high solar elevations but strongly depends on cloud cell orientations for low elevations. On the other hand, neglecting the influence of cloud size distribution leads to systematic over-estimate of their impact on the shortwave radiation whereas the effect is close to zero in the thermal range. The overall effect of the heterogeneities is estimated to be of the order of 10 W m−2 for the conditions of that Landsat picture (solar zenith angle 65○, cloud cover 70%); it might reach 40 W m−2 for an overhead sun and overcast cloud conditions. 相似文献
13.
Ice crystal clouds have an influence on the radiative budget of the earth; however, the exact size and nature of this influence has yet to be determined. A laboratory cloud chamber experiment has been set up to provide data on the optical scattering behaviour of ice crystals at a visible wavelength in order to gain information which can be used in climate models concerning the radiative characteristics of cirrus clouds. A PMS grey-scale probe is used to monitor simultaneously the cloud microphysical properties in order to correlate these closely with the observed radiative properties. Preliminary results show that ice crystals scatter considerably more at 90° than do water droplets, and that the halo effects are visible in a laboratorygenerated cloud when the ice crystal concentration is sufficiently small to prevent masking from multiple scattering. 相似文献
14.
Patrick C. Taylor 《Surveys in Geophysics》2012,33(3-4):609-617
This paper presents an overview of discussions during the Cloud’s Role session at the Observing and Modelling Earth’s Energy Flows Workshop. N. Loeb and B. Soden convened this session including 10 presentations by B. Stevens, B. Wielicki, G. Stephens, A. Clement, K. Sassen, D. Hartmann, T. Andrews, A. Del Genio, H. Barker, and M. Sugi addressing critical aspects of the role of clouds in modulating Earth energy flows. Presentation topics covered a diverse range of areas from cloud microphysics and dynamics, cloud radiative transfer, and the role of clouds in large-scale atmospheric circulations patterns in both observations and atmospheric models. The presentations and discussions, summarized below, are organized around several key questions raised during the session. (1) What is the best way to evaluate clouds in climate models? (2) How well do models need to represent clouds to be acceptable for making climate predictions? (3) What are the largest uncertainties in clouds? (4) How can these uncertainties be reduced? (5) What new observations are needed to address these problems? Answers to these critical questions are the topics of ongoing research and will guide the future direction of this area of research. 相似文献
15.
积层混合云是我国的主要降水云系,也是人工影响天气的主要作业对象,从云降水物理的角度来研究云系的形成和发展维系具有重要的意义.基于积层混合云的重要性,本文从个例研究入手,利用中尺度数值模式WRF,模拟2005年5月17~18日发生在我国西南山区（主要以贵州省为主）的积层混合云降水过程.发现这次过程是由对流云并合扩大层化形成的.云系形成以后,云系附近会不断有对流云生成,并在移动过程中并合进入云系,补充云系发展维系所需的含水量和能量,促使云系不断维持.在积层混合云系的内部,对流云和层状云区不断地发生作用.对流云给周围的层状云不断输送含水量和能量,支持着层状云的发展.云系内部两种云相互作用的结果体现在：对流云内的上升气流速度逐渐渐小,层状云的上升气流速度不断维持,总上升气流面积区扩大.对流云的降水量不断减小,而层状云的降水不断维持,带来了大面积持续时间很长的降水. 相似文献
16.
B. Strauss R. Meerkoetter B. Wissinger P. Wendling M. Hess 《Annales Geophysicae》1997,15(11):1457-1467
The impact of contrail-induced cirrus clouds on regional climate is estimated for mean atmospheric conditions of southern Germany in the months of July and October. This is done by use of a regionalized one-dimensional radiative convective model (RCM). The influence of an increased ice cloud cover is studied by comparing RCM results representing climatological values with a modified case. In order to study the sensitivity of this effect on the radiative characteristics of the ice cloud, two types of additional ice clouds were modelled: cirrus and contrails, the latter cloud type containing a higher number of smaller and less of the larger cloud particles. Ice cloud parameters are calculated on the basis of a particle size distribution which covers the range from 2 to 2000 m, taking into consideration recent measurements which show a remarkable amount of particles smaller than 20 m. It turns out that a 10% increase in ice cloud cover leads to a surface temperature increase in the order of 1K, ranging from 1.1 to 1.2K in July and from 0.8 to 0.9K in October depending on the radiative characteristics of the air-traffic-induced ice clouds. Modelling the current contrail cloud cover which is near 0.5% over Europe yields a surface temperature increase in the order of 0.05 K. 相似文献
17.
The Global Atmospheric Electrical Circuit and Climate 总被引：2，自引：1，他引：2
R. G. Harrison 《Surveys in Geophysics》2004,25(5-6):441-484
Evidence is emerging for physical links among clouds, global temperatures, the global atmospheric electrical circuit and cosmic ray ionisation. The global circuit extends throughout the atmosphere from the planetary surface to the lower layers of the ionosphere. Cosmic rays are the principal source of atmospheric ions away from the continental boundary layer: the ions formed permit a vertical conduction current to flow in the fair weather part of the global circuit. Through the (inverse) solar modulation of cosmic rays, the resulting columnar ionisation changes may allow the global circuit to convey a solar influence to meteorological phenomena of the lower atmosphere. Electrical effects on non-thunderstorm clouds have been proposed to occur via the ion-assisted formation of ultra-fine aerosol, which can grow to sizes able to act as cloud condensation nuclei, or through the increased ice nucleation capability of charged aerosols. Even small atmospheric electrical modulations on the aerosol size distribution can affect cloud properties and modify the radiative balance of the atmosphere, through changes communicated globally by the atmospheric electrical circuit. Despite a long history of work in related areas of geophysics, the direct and inverse relationships between the global circuit and global climate remain largely quantitatively unexplored. From reviewing atmospheric electrical measurements made over two centuries and possible paleoclimate proxies, global atmospheric electrical circuit variability should be expected on many timescales. 相似文献
18.
The retrieval of cloud microphysical properties using satellite measurements and an in situ database
Christophe Poix Guy Febvre Anne Fouilloux Howard Larsen Jean-Francois Gayet 《Annales Geophysicae》1996,14(1):98-106
By combining AVHRR data from the NOAA satellites with information from a database of in situ measurements, large-scale maps can be generated of the microphysical parameters most immediately significant for the modelling of global circulation and climate. From the satellite data, the clouds can be classified into cumuliform, stratiform and cirrus classes and then into further sub-classes by cloud top temperature. At the same time a database of in situ measurements made by research aircraft is classified into the same sub-classes and a statistical analysis is used to derive relationships between the sub-classes and the cloud microphysical properties. These two analyses are then linked to give estimates of the microphysical properties of the satellite observed clouds. Examples are given of the application of this technique to derive maps of the probability of occurrence of precipitating clouds and of precipitating water content derived from a case study within the International Cirrus Experiment (ICE) held in 1989 over the North Sea. 相似文献
19.
Improved prediction and tracking of volcanic ash clouds 总被引：3，自引：1，他引：2
During the past 30 years, more than 100 airplanes have inadvertently flown through clouds of volcanic ash from erupting volcanoes. Such encounters have caused millions of dollars in damage to the aircraft and have endangered the lives of tens of thousands of passengers. In a few severe cases, total engine failure resulted when ash was ingested into turbines and coating turbine blades. These incidents have prompted the establishment of cooperative efforts by the International Civil Aviation Organization and the volcanological community to provide rapid notification of eruptive activity, and to monitor and forecast the trajectories of ash clouds so that they can be avoided by air traffic. Ash-cloud properties such as plume height, ash concentration, and three-dimensional ash distribution have been monitored through non-conventional remote sensing techniques that are under active development. Forecasting the trajectories of ash clouds has required the development of volcanic ash transport and dispersion models that can calculate the path of an ash cloud over the scale of a continent or a hemisphere. Volcanological inputs to these models, such as plume height, mass eruption rate, eruption duration, ash distribution with altitude, and grain-size distribution, must be assigned in real time during an event, often with limited observations. Databases and protocols are currently being developed that allow for rapid assignment of such source parameters. In this paper, we summarize how an interdisciplinary working group on eruption source parameters has been instigating research to improve upon the current understanding of volcanic ash cloud characterization and predictions. Improved predictions of ash cloud movement and air fall will aid in making better hazard assessments for aviation and for public health and air quality. 相似文献
20.
《Journal of Atmospheric and Solar》2008,70(13):1633-1642
Statistically significant (at the 95% significance level) changes in daily cloud cover are found to occur globally over land coincident with extreme increases in ‘fair-weather’ measurements of vertical electric field (Ez) measured at Vostok, Antarctica. Using global cloud products from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) D1 data series, superposed epoch analyses were made of both increases and decreases in Ez. Field significance testing revealed that, both before and after extreme increases in Ez, significant absolute cloud cover changes (of 13–15%) occur in the tropics and high latitudes. While the linkages in the tropics may reflect changes in the main convective cloud generators of current flow in the global circuit, the linkages at high latitudes appear to represent responses of clouds to the current flow. This linkage offers a possible explanation of a possible solar–terrestrial climate amplification mechanism. 相似文献