Down welling longwave fluxes at continental surfaces - A comparison of observations with GCM simulations and implications for the global land-surface radiation budget

Abstract

Previous work suggests that general circulation (global climate) models have excess net radiation at land surfaces, apparently due to overestimates in downwelling shortwave flux and underestimates in upwelling longwave flux. Part of this excess, however, may be compensated for by an underestimate in downwelling longwave flux. Long term observations of the downwelling longwave component at several land stations in Europe, the United States, Australia, and Antarctica suggest that climate models (four are used, as in previous studies) underestimate this flux component on an annual basis by up to 10 W m-2, yet with low statistical significance. It is probable that the known underestimate in boundary-layer air temperature contributes to this, as would low model cloudiness and neglect of minor gases such as methane, nitrogen oxide, and the freons. The bias in downwelling longwave flux, together with those found earlier for downwelling shortwave and upwelling longwave fluxes, are consistent with the model bias found previously for net radiation. All annually averaged fluxes and biases are deduced for global land as a whole.