Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation at the surface from ground‐based observations, satellite retrievals, and reanalyses

Wang, Kaicun; Dickinson, Robert E.

doi:10.1002/rog.20009

Cited by 157 publications

(156 citation statements)

References 238 publications

(462 reference statements)

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“…L d is typically estimated by first determining the clear-sky radiation and atmospheric emissivity (Brunt, 1932;Choi et al, 2008;Bilbao and De Miguel, 2007) and then correcting for the cloud fraction (Wang and Liang, 2009;Wang and Dickinson, 2013). The derived L d values can directly reflect the greenhouse effect of atmospheric water vapour and clouds.…”

Section: Observational Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The R s heats the surface, and the portion of this radiation that becomes the sensible heat flux heats the air near the surface (Zhou and Wang, 2016b, c;Wang and Dickinson, 2013). Part of the energy absorbed by the surface is released back to space as outgoing longwave radiation; some of this radiation is reflected by clouds and is influenced by atmospheric water vapour, further warming the near-surface air (Wang and Dickinson, 2013).…”

Section: Key Factors Regulating Regional Temperature Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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On the suitability of current atmospheric reanalyses for regional warming studies over China

Zhou

Wang

2018

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Reanalyses are widely used because they add value to routine observations by generating physically or dynamically consistent and spatiotemporally complete atmospheric fields. Existing studies include extensive discussions of the temporal suitability of reanalyses in studies of global change. This study adds to this existing work by investigating the suitability of reanalyses in studies of regional climate change, in which land-atmosphere interactions play a comparatively important role. In this study, surface air temperatures (T a ) from 12 current reanalysis products are investigated; in particular, the spatial patterns of trends in T a are examined using homogenized measurements of T a made at ∼ 2200 meteorological stations in China from 1979 to 2010. The results show that ∼ 80 % of the mean differences in T a between the reanalyses and the in situ observations can be attributed to the differences in elevation between the stations and the model grids. Thus, the T a climatologies display good skill, and these findings rebut previous reports of biases in T a . However, the biases in theT a trends in the reanalyses diverge spatially (standard deviation = 0.15-0.30 • C decade −1 using 1 • × 1 • grid cells). The simulated biases in the trends in T a correlate well with those of precipitation frequency, surface incident solar radiation (R s ) and atmospheric downward longwave radiation (L d ) among the reanalyses (r = −0.83, 0.80 and 0.77; p < 0.1) when the spatial patterns of these variables are considered. The biases in the trends in T a over southern China (on the order of −0.07 • C decade −1 ) are caused by biases in the trends in R s , L d and precipitation frequency on the order of 0.10, −0.08 and −0.06 • C decade −1 , respectively. The biases in the trends in T a over northern China (on the order of −0.12 • C decade −1 ) result jointly from those in L d and precipitation frequency. Therefore, improving the simulation of precipitation frequency and R s helps to maximize the signal component corresponding to regional climate. In addition, the analysis of T a observations helps represent regional warming in ERA-Interim and JRA-55. Incorporating vegetation dynamics in reanalyses and the use of accurate aerosol information, as in the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2), would lead to improvements in the modelling of regional warming. The use of the ensemble technique adopted in the twentieth-century atmospheric model ensemble ERA-20CM significantly narrows the uncertainties associated with regional warming in reanalyses (standard deviation = 0.15 • C decade −1 ).

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Section: Observational Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Key Factors Regulating Regional Temperature Changementioning

confidence: 99%

On the suitability of current atmospheric reanalyses for regional warming studies over China

Zhou

Wang

2018

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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“…Elevated greenhouse gases (GHG) have increased atmospheric downward longwave radiation (L d ) (39,40) and T a (41) during the twentieth century. However, variability in radiative forcing from aerosols and clouds complicates the attribution of the observed climate change to the elevated GHG.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Contribution of solar radiation to decadal temperature variability over land

Wang

Dickinson

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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131

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Global air temperature has become the primary metric for judging global climate change. The variability of global temperature on a decadal timescale is still poorly understood. This paper examines further one suggested hypothesis, that variations in solar radiation reaching the surface (R s ) have caused much of the observed decadal temperature variability. Because R s only heats air during the day, its variability is plausibly related to the variability of diurnal temperature range (daily maximum temperature minus its minimum). We show that the variability of diurnal temperature range is consistent with the variability of R s at timescales from monthly to decadal. This paper uses long comprehensive datasets for diurnal temperature range to establish what has been the contribution of R s to decadal temperature variability. It shows that R s over land globally peaked in the 1930s, substantially decreased from the 1940s to the 1970s, and changed little after that. Reduction of R s caused a reduction of more than 0.2°C in mean temperature during May to October from the 1940s through the 1970s, and a reduction of nearly 0.2°C in mean air temperature during November to April from the 1960s through the 1970s. This cooling accounts in part for the near-constant temperature from the 1930s into the 1970s. Since then, neither the rapid increase in temperature from the 1970s through the 1990s nor the slowdown of warming in the early twenty-first century appear to be significantly related to changes of R s .global dimming | global brightening | global warming | surface incident solar radiation | decadal variability G lobal temperature has become the primary metric for judging global climate change, although many other factors are recognized to be of comparable importance. The overall increase of global temperature over the last century has been largely attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases (1). Less well understood are the reasons for the variability of this increase on a decadal timescale. In particular, warming from 1900 to 1940 was followed by three decades of flat or slightly decreasing temperature, then three decades of very rapid temperature increase, then so far in this century, very little additional increase. The two most plausible explanations for the decadal variability are natural climate variability and variable degrees of cooling from anthropogenic releases of sulfur gas producing sulfate aerosols (2). This effect has long been proposed as a mechanism to counter greenhouse warming (3), has become the basis for many geoengineering proposals (4), and has been used to attribute the lack of warming so far this century to the rapid growth of aerosols in Asia (5).Besides the difference in sign of their temperature effects, sulfate aerosols are distinguished from greenhouse gases in that they only affect daytime radiation, i.e., surface incident solar radiation (R s ). Some kinds of natural variability can also act through affecting R s , i.e., those involving cloud properties.Changes of aerosol loading and ...

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“…These reanalyses have been used in various applications, for example, to detect the long-term climate trends [14][15][16][17], to generate the atmospheric forcing data [18,19], and to investigate the water and energy budgets between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere [13,[20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the Reanalysis Surface Incident Shortwave Radiation Products from NCEP, ECMWF, GSFC, and JMA Using Satellite and Surface Observations

et al. 2016

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Solar radiation incident at the Earth's surface (R s ) is an essential component of the total energy exchange between the atmosphere and the surface. Reanalysis data have been widely used, but a comprehensive validation using surface measurements is still highly needed. In this study, we evaluated the R s estimates from six current representative global reanalyses (NCEP-NCAR, NCEP-DOE; CFSR; ERA-Interim; MERRA; and JRA-55) using surface measurements from different observation networks [GEBA; BSRN; GC-NET; Buoy; and CMA] (674 sites in total) and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) EBAF product from 2001 to 2009. The global mean biases between the reanalysis R s and surface measurements at all sites ranged from 11.25 W/m 2 to 49.80 W/m 2 . Comparing with the CERES-EBAF R s product, all the reanalyses overestimate R s , except for ERA-Interim, with the biases ranging from´2.98 W/m 2 to 21.97 W/m 2 over the globe. It was also found that the biases of cloud fraction (CF) in the reanalyses caused the overestimation of R s . After removing the averaged bias of CERES-EBAF, weighted by the area of the latitudinal band, a global annual mean R s values of 184.6 W/m 2 , 180.0 W/m 2 , and 182.9 W/m 2 were obtained over land, ocean, and the globe, respectively.

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Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation at the surface from ground‐based observations, satellite retrievals, and reanalyses

Cited by 157 publications

References 238 publications

On the suitability of current atmospheric reanalyses for regional warming studies over China

On the suitability of current atmospheric reanalyses for regional warming studies over China

Contribution of solar radiation to decadal temperature variability over land

Evaluation of the Reanalysis Surface Incident Shortwave Radiation Products from NCEP, ECMWF, GSFC, and JMA Using Satellite and Surface Observations

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