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Towards evaluating cloud response to climate change using clustering technique identification of cloud regimes

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Abstract

Most of the discrepancies in the climate sensitivity of general circulation models (GCMs) are believed to be due to differences in cloud radiative feedback. Analysis of cloud response to climate change in different ‘regimes’ may offer a more detailed understanding of how the cloud response differs between GCMs. In which case, evaluation of simulated cloud regimes against observations in terms of both their cloud properties and frequency of occurrence will assist in assessing confidence in the cloud response to climate change in a particular GCM. In this study, we use a clustering technique on International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) data and on ISCCP-like diagnostics from two versions of the Hadley Centre GCM to identify cloud regimes over four different geographical regions. The two versions of the model are evaluated against observational data and their cloud response to climate change compared within the cloud regime framework. It is found that cloud clusters produced by the more recent GCM, HadSM4, compare more favourably with observations than HadSM3. In response to climate change, although the net cloud response over particular regions is often different in the two models, in several instances the same basic processes may be seen to be operating. Overall, both changes in the frequency of occurrence of cloud regimes and changes in the properties (optical depth and cloud top height) of the cloud regimes contribute to the cloud response to climate change.

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Notes

  1. Based on 2 standard deviations of the inter-annual variability of LCRF for the region (i.e. calculated independently from the clustering technique) in the control and 2× CO2 simulations divided by the square root of 5 (the number of years). This provides approximately a 5% significance assuming a normal distribution and that each year is an independent sample.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks go to Christian Jakob and George Tselioudis for a useful conversation on the work. Thanks also to Alejandro Bodas-Salcedo, William Ingram, Mark Ringer and Mark Webb for providing useful discussions throughout the study and comments on early drafts of the paper. This work was funded under the UK Government Meteorological Research programme. ISCCP data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Sciences Data Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK

    Keith D. Williams, Catherine A. Senior & John F. B. Mitchell

  2. Environmental Systems Science Centre, University of Reading, UK

    Keith D. Williams & Anthony Slingo

Authors
  1. Keith D. Williams
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  2. Catherine A. Senior
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  3. Anthony Slingo
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  4. John F. B. Mitchell
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Correspondence to Keith D. Williams.

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Williams, K.D., Senior, C.A., Slingo, A. et al. Towards evaluating cloud response to climate change using clustering technique identification of cloud regimes. Climate Dynamics 24, 701–719 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-004-0512-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-004-0512-z

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