Open AccessThe Modification of Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Linear Damping Time Scales by Stratocumulus Clouds
Author(s) -
Amato T. Evan,
Robert J. Allen,
Ralf Bennartz,
Daniel J. Vimont
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of climate
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.315
H-Index - 287
eISSN - 1520-0442
pISSN - 0894-8755
DOI - 10.1175/jcli-d-12-00370.1
Subject(s) - climatology , sea surface temperature , cloud cover , environmental science , coupled model intercomparison project , anomaly (physics) , mode (computer interface) , zonal and meridional , extratropical cyclone , atmospheric sciences , positive feedback , albedo (alchemy) , climate model , geology , physics , climate change , cloud computing , oceanography , condensed matter physics , computer science , operating system , art , engineering , performance art , electrical engineering , art history
Stratocumulus (Sc) cloud cover is a persistent feature of the subtropical North and South Atlantic. It is well known that Sc cloud cover increases with decreasing temperatures of the underlying sea surface and that an increase in cloud cover will cool the surface temperatures via increasing the local albedo, otherwise known as the Sc feedback. In this study observations are used to quantify the magnitude and spatial structure of the Sc feedback in the tropical–extratropical Atlantic Ocean and investigate the role of the Sc feedback in shaping the evolution of coupled modes of variability there. The authors show that in the Atlantic the Sc feedback increases the time scales of Newtonian cooling by 40% and in an idealized linear model of the tropical Atlantic the dominant mode of coupled variability (the Atlantic meridional mode or dipole mode) would experience no transient growth without the influence of the Sc feedback on the surface temperature damping time scales. This study also investigates Atlantic Sc clouds and the Sc feedback in phase 3 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) models. The authors find that most models have negative biases in the mean state of Sc cloud cover and do not reproduce the observed spatial structure of Atlantic Sc clouds. This study also shows that while the majority of models exhibit some agreement with observations in the meridional structure of the Sc feedback, the vast majority of models underestimate the dependence of Sc cloud cover on the underlying SST.