Clouds and Their Climatic Impact

Exploring how clouds influence radiation, circulation, and precipitation

Clouds are an influential and complex element of Earth's climate system. They evolve rapidly in time and exist over small spatial scales, but also affect global radiative balance and large-scale circulations. With more powerful models and extensive observations now at our disposal, the climate impact of clouds is receiving ever more research attention.

Clouds and Their Climatic Impacts: Radiation, Circulation, and Precipitation presents an overview of our current understanding on various types of clouds and cloud systems and their multifaceted role in the radiative budget, circulation patterns, and rainfall.

Volume highlights include:

• Interactions of aerosol with both liquid and ice clouds
• Surface and atmospheric cloud radiative feedbacks and effects
• Arctic, extratropical, and tropical clouds
• Cloud-circulation coupling at global, meso, and micro scales
• Precipitation efficiency, phase, and measurements

• The role of machine learning in understanding clouds and climate

  The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals.

  Autorentext

  Sylvia C. Sullivan, University of Arizona, USA, and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.

  Corinna Hoose, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.

  Inhalt

  List of Contributors ix

  Preface xiii

  1 Science of Cloud and Climate Science: An Analysis of the Literature Over the Past 50 Years 1
  Sylvia C. Sullivan and Corinna Hoose

  Part I Clouds and Radiation

  2 An Overview of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions 15
  Hamish Gordon, Franziska Glassmeier, and Daniel McCoy

  3 Ice Crystal Complexity and Link to the Cirrus Cloud Radiative Effect 47
  Emma Järvinen, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Nathan Magee, Steven Neshyba, Martin Schnaiter, Guanglang Xu, Olivier Jourdan, David Delene, Fritz Waitz, Simone Lolli, and Seiji Kato

  4 Cloud-Radiation Interactions and Cloud-Climate Feedbacks From an Active-Sensor Satellite Perspective 87
  Grégory V. Cesana, Andrew S. Ackerman, Thibault Vaillant de Guélis, and David S. Henderson

  Part II Cloud Types

  5 A Review of the Factors Influencing Arctic Mixed-Phase Clouds: Progress and Outlook 105
  Ivy Tan, Georgia Sotiropoulou, Patrick C. Taylor, Lauren Zamora, and Manfred Wendisch

  6 Extratropical Cloud Feedbacks 133
  Daniel T. McCoy, Michelle E. Frazer, Johannes Mülmenstädt, Ivy Tan, Christopher R. Terai, and Mark D. Zelinka

  7 Tropical Marine Low Clouds: Feedbacks to Warming and on Climate Variability 159
  Timothy A. Myers, Raphaela Vogel, Florent Brient, Hossein Parishani, and Ryan C. Scott

  8 Mechanisms for the Self-Organization of Tropical Deep Convection 179
  Jan O. Haerter and Caroline Muller

  9 An Overview of Mesoscale Convective Systems: Global Climatology, Satellite Observations, and Modeling Strategies 195
  Sudip Chakraborty, Sylvia C. Sullivan, and Zhe Feng

  Part III Clouds and Circulation

  10 Interactions Between the Tropical Atmospheric Overturning Circulation and Clouds in Present and Future Climates 225
  Kathleen A. Schiro and Hui Su

  11 Clouds and Radiatively Induced Circulations 239
  Tra Dinh, Blaž Gasparini, and Gilles Bellon

  12 The Small-Scale Mixing of Clouds with Their Environment: Impacts on Micro- and Macroscale Cloud Properties 255
  Fabian Hoffmann

  Part IV Clouds and Precipitation

  13 Precipitation Efficiency and Climate Sensitivity 273
  Nicholas J. Lutsko, Steven C. Sherwood, and Ming Zhao

  14 Observed Scaling of Precipitation Extremes With Surface Temperature and Convective Available Potential Energy 287
  Wenhao Dong and Yanluan Lin

  15 Satellite Precipitation Measurements: What Have We Learnt About Cloud-Precipitation Processes From Space? 303
  Maki Kikuchi, Scott A. Braun, Kentaroh Suzuki, Guosheng Liu, and Alessandro Battaglia

  Part V Outlook

  16 Machine Learning for Clouds and Climate 327
  Tom Beucler, Imme Ebert-Uphoff, Stephan Rasp, Michael Pritchard, and Pierre Gentine

  Index 347