Premium
Present‐day springtime high‐latitude surface albedo as a predictor of simulated climate sensitivity
Author(s) -
Levis Samuel,
Bonan Gordon B.,
Lawrence Peter J.
Publication year - 2007
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 - 10.1029/2007gl030775
Subject(s) - albedo (alchemy) , snow , environmental science , climatology , climate model , latitude , atmospheric sciences , snow cover , atmosphere (unit) , climate change , meteorology , geology , geography , art , oceanography , geodesy , performance art , art history
Simulations by the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) and 15 other climate models suggest that climate sensitivity is linked to continental middle to high latitude present‐day springtime albedo. We compare 1 × CO 2 and 2 × CO 2 CAM simulations against similar simulations with snow cover fraction purposely increased. Greater snow cover fraction leads to higher albedo and lower temperatures at 1 × CO 2 but has less influence at 2 × CO 2 when little snow remains due to global warming. This makes the simulation with higher albedo at 1 × CO 2 more sensitive to increased CO 2 , in agreement with past work. We show that the wide variation in simulated snow‐albedo feedbacks and climate sensitivities among 15 other models correlates well with variations in the continental middle to high latitude present‐day springtime albedo, in agreement with our CAM results. The development of more accurate snow and albedo parameterizations should improve model estimates of climate sensitivity.