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Does Surface Temperature Respond to or Determine Downwelling Longwave Radiation?
Author(s) -
Vargas Zeppetello L. R.,
Donohoe A.,
Battisti D. S.
Publication year - 2019
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 - 10.1029/2019gl082220
Subject(s) - longwave , forcing (mathematics) , environmental science , downwelling , atmospheric sciences , radiative forcing , radiative transfer , cloud forcing , energy budget , climatology , meteorology , geology , physics , aerosol , oceanography , upwelling , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics
Abstract Downward longwave radiation (DLR) is often assumed to be an independent forcing on the surface energy budget in analyses of Arctic warming and land‐atmosphere interaction. We use radiative kernels to show that the DLR response to forcing is largely determined by surface temperature perturbations. We develop a method by which vertically integrated versions of the radiative kernels are combined with surface temperature and specific humidity to estimate the surface DLR response to greenhouse forcing. Through a decomposition of the DLR response, we estimate that changes in surface temperature produce at least 63% of the clear‐sky DLR response in greenhouse forcing, while the changes associated with clouds account for only 11% of the full‐sky DLR response. Our results suggest that surface DLR is tightly coupled to surface temperature; therefore, it cannot be considered an independent component of the surface energy budget.