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Analytic radiative‐advective equilibrium as a model for high‐latitude climate
Author(s) -
Cronin Timothy W.,
Jansen Malte F.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2015gl067172
Subject(s) - longwave , shortwave , atmospheric sciences , advection , environmental science , radiative forcing , forcing (mathematics) , radiative equilibrium , radiative transfer , shortwave radiation , cloud forcing , climatology , meteorology , physics , thermodynamics , geology , radiation , aerosol , quantum mechanics
We propose radiative‐advective equilibrium as a basic‐state model for the high‐latitude atmosphere. Temperature profiles are determined by a competition between stabilization by atmospheric shortwave absorption and advective heat flux convergence, and destabilization by surface shortwave absorption. We derive analytic expressions for temperature profiles, assuming power law atmospheric heating profiles as a function of pressure and two‐stream windowed‐gray longwave radiative transfer. We discuss example profiles with and without an atmospheric window and show that the sensitivity of surface temperature to forcing depends on the nature of the forcing, with greatest sensitivity to radiative forcing by increased optical thickness and least sensitivity to increased atmospheric heat transport. These differences in sensitivity of surface temperature to forcing can be explained in terms of a forcing‐dependent lapse‐rate feedback.