Cloud Feedbacks in the Climate System: A Critical Review

By Graeme L. Stephens. 2005

1,112 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/72a69ddd1126cd1a60eef0a407644883ccb86695

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atmospheric Science

In Global and Planetary Change

Citations in the corpus

The Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment (2008, neutral): “A crucial factor in our ability to forecast future climate change is a better representation of tropical cloud systems, and their heating and radiative impacts in climate models (Stephens 2005; Del Genio and Kovari 2002; Neale and Slingo 2003; Spencer and Slingo 2003).”
A global survey of cloud overlap based on CALIPSO and CloudSat measurements (2015, background): “Introduction 58 As the most important regulators of the Earth’s climate system, clouds 59 significantly affect the radiation budget, the hydrological cycle and the large-scale 60 circulation of the Earth (Hartmann et al., 1992; Stephens, 2005).”
Estimating shortwave radiative forcing and response in climate models (2007, background): “understand the processes that determine that response (Stephens 2005).”
Tropical and Subtropical Cloud Transitions in Weather and Climate Prediction Models: The GCSS/WGNE Pacific Cross-Section Intercomparison (GPCI) (2011, background): “, doubling CO2), current climate models display profoundly different responses in terms of boundary layer (low) clouds, often leading to cloud– climate feedbacks of opposing signal (e.g., Bony et al. 2004, 2006; Bony and Dufresne 2005; Wyant et al. 2006; Stephens 2005).”
Evaluation of cloud and water vapor simulations in CMIP5 climate models using NASA “A-Train” satellite observations (2012, background): “Both ice and liquid clouds significantly affect the radiation budget through their shortwave albedo and longwave greenhouse effects [e.g., Hartmann and Short, 1980; Harrison et al., 1990; Randall and Tjemkes, 1991; Bony et al., 2006; Stephens, 2005].”
A variational scheme for retrieving ice cloud properties from combined radar, lidar, and infrared radiometer (2008, background): “[2] It is widely recognized that clouds play an important role in both weather and climate forecasts [Stephens, 2005].”
The CloudSat radar‐lidar geometrical profile product (RL‐GeoProf): Updates, improvements, and selected results (2014, background): “Our understanding of cloud processes and feedbacks continues to be challenged largely because observations have not sufficiently constrained numerical models [Stephens, 2005; Norris and Slingo, 2009].”
Marine boundary layer clouds at the heart of tropical cloud feedback uncertainties in climate models (2005, background): “[2] For more than a decade, the large spread of cloud feedbacks among climate models has been considered a major source of uncertainty for climate sensitivity estimates [Cess et al., 1990; Houghton et al., 2001; Colman, 2003; Stephens, 2005].”
How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes (2006, background): “Several approaches have been proposed to diagnose global radiative feedbacks in GCMs (appendix B), each of these having its own strengths and weaknesses (Soden et al. 2004; Stephens 2005).”
The Evolution of Climate Sensitivity and Climate Feedbacks in the Community Atmosphere Model (2012, background): “This is reiterated in a recent review (Stephens 2005).”
Earth System Modeling 2.0: A Blueprint for Models That Learn From Observations and Targeted High‐Resolution Simulations (2017, background): “Parameterizations of clouds dominate the uncertainties in physical processes (Brient & Schneider, 2016, Bony et al., 2006; Cess et al., 1989, 1990; Soden & Held, 2006; Stephens, 2005; Vial et al., 2013; Webb et al., 2013).”
Comparison of Bulk and Bin Warm-Rain Microphysics Models Using a Kinematic Framework (2007, background): “Clouds and their impact on the transfer of solar (shortwave) and thermal (longwave) radiation are the most challenging aspect of climate and climate change (e.g., Stephens 2005 and references therein).”
An Assessment of the Primary Sources of Spread of Global Warming Estimates from Coupled Atmosphere–Ocean Models (2008, background): “As reviewed by different authors (e.g., Soden et al. 2004; Stephens 2005; Bony et al. 2006), several approaches have been followed to decompose the total feedback parameter into its several components (water vapor, clouds, surface albedo, etc.”
Present-day climate and climate sensitivity in the meteorological research institute coupled GCM version 2.3 (MRI-CGCM2.3) (2006, background): “E-mail: yukimoto@mri-jma.go.jp ( 2006, Meteorological Society of Japan anathan and Collins 1991), or changes in the cloud optical properties and hydrological cycle (Stephens 2005 and references therein), without providing a comprehensive explanation.”