The responses of cloudiness to the direct radiative effect of sulfate and carbonaceous aerosols

Abstract

This study investigates the responses of the direct radiative effect of light absorbing and scattering carbonaceous and sulfate aerosols on cloudiness and associated radiative fluxes using an interactive aerosol-climate model coupled with a slab ocean model. We find that without including the impact of aerosols on cloud microphysics in the model (indirect effect), the direct radiative effect of aerosols alone can cause a change in cloud coverage and thus in cloud flux change which is consistent with several previous studies. More notably, our result indicates that the direct radiative effect of absorbing aerosols can cause changes in both low-level and high-level clouds with opposite signs. As a result, the global mean cloud radiation response to absorbing aerosols has a rather small value. The change of cloud solar radiative response (all-sky effect minus clear-sky effect) at the top of the atmosphere due to the existence of direct radiative effect of scattering, absorbing, and both types of aerosols is 0.72, 0.08, and 0.81 Wm2, respectively, all are comparable in quantity to the current estimation of aerosol direct radiative forcing. The cloud response due to the longwave radiative effect is 0.09, 0.18, and 0.27 Wm2, respectively. The global means of the radiative flux and cloud radiative responses appear to be linearly additive; however, this is definitely not the case for the zonal mean or at the regional scale.