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Interpretation of Snow-Climate Feedback as Produced by 17 General Circulation Models

1991; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 253; Issue: 5022 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.253.5022.888

1095-9203

R. D. Cess, G. L. Potter, Minghua Zhang, Jean‐Pierre Blanchet, S. Chalita, Robert Colman, D. A. Dazlich, Anthony D. Del Genio, Valentin Dymnikov, V. Ya. Galin, D. Jerrett, E. Keup, Andrew A. Lacis, Hervé Le Treut, Xin‐Zhong Liang, J.-F. Mahfouf, B. J. McAvaney, V. P. Meleshko, J. F. B. Mitchell, Jean‐Jacques Morcrette, P. M. Norris, David A. Randall, L. Rikus, E. Roeckner, J.‐F. Royer, Ulrich Schlese, Dmitry Sheinin, Julia Slingo, A. Sokolov, Karl E. Taylor, Warren M. Washington, R. T. Wetherald, Isamu Yagai,

Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics

Snow feedback is expected to amplify global warming caused by increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. The conventional explanation is that a warmer Earth will have less snow cover, resulting in a darker planet that absorbs more solar radiation. An intercomparison of 17 general circulation models, for which perturbations of sea surface temperature were used as a surrogate climate change, suggests that this explanation is overly simplistic. The results instead indicate that additional amplification or moderation may be caused both by cloud interactions and longwave radiation. One measure of this net effect of snow feedback was found to differ markedly among the 17 climate models, ranging from weak negative feedback in some models to strong positive feedback in others.