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Dependency of global mean precipitation on surface temperature
Author(s) -
Lambert F. Hugo,
Webb Mark J.
Publication year - 2008
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 - 10.1029/2008gl034838
Subject(s) - precipitation , shortwave radiation , climatology , troposphere , environmental science , gcm transcription factors , shortwave , atmospheric sciences , climate change , general circulation model , satellite , range (aeronautics) , climate model , meteorology , radiation , geology , radiative transfer , materials science , geography , oceanography , physics , quantum mechanics , aerospace engineering , engineering , composite material
We investigate the causes of temperature dependent changes in global precipitation in contemporary General Circulation Models (GCMs) subjected to a doubling of atmospheric CO 2 concentration. By analyzing the energy budget of the troposphere, we find that changes are dominated by processes robustly simulated by GCMs. Importantly, shortwave cloud feedbacks, whose uncertainty is largely responsible for the wide range of GCM temperature climate sensitivities, are shown to have little effect. This is because these mainly arise from the scattering of shortwave radiation that has little impact on the tropospheric heating that controls precipitation. Hence, we expect that the range of simulated precipitation sensitivities to temperature will not change greatly in future GCMs, despite the recent suggestion that satellite observations indicate that GCM precipitation changes are significantly in error.