Song et al. (2025) Radiative and Precipitation Processes Make it Easier to Match the Temperature Record and Harder to Constrain Future Warming

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-17
• Authors: Ci Song, Geethma Werapitiya, Daniel T. McCoy, Duncan Watson‐Parris, Andrew Gettelman, Trude Eidhammer
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl117386

Research Groups

Not specified in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study examines a negative correlation between radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions and shortwave cloud feedback within a perturbed parameter ensemble. It finds that while this correlation helps Earth System Models reproduce historical temperature records, it simultaneously limits the ability to constrain future warming projections using these records.

Objective

• To examine the negative correlation between the radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions and the shortwave cloud feedback to warming, as observed in a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE).

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global (for historical temperature record context), Extratropical (where the negative correlation emerges).
• Temporal Scale: Industrial era (for historical temperature record context).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Perturbed Parameter Ensemble (PPE), Energy Balance Model.
• Data sources: Historical temperature record (observations), historical forcings (inferred/modeled).

Main Results

• A negative correlation emerges between the radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions and the shortwave cloud feedback to warming within the perturbed parameter ensemble, particularly over the extratropics.
• This correlation is attributed to the combined effects of liquid cloud precipitation efficiency and radiative saturation in the shortwave.
• These processes contribute to Earth System Models yielding a temperature record consistent with observations.
• However, these same processes limit the ability to constrain future warming projections using the historical temperature record.

Contributions

• Identifies and explains a fundamental negative correlation between aerosol-cloud interaction radiative forcing and shortwave cloud feedback in perturbed parameter ensembles.
• Elucidates the physical mechanisms (liquid cloud precipitation efficiency and radiative saturation) driving this correlation.
• Highlights a critical limitation in using historical temperature records to constrain future warming projections, demonstrating how coupled processes can obscure climate sensitivity.

Funding

Not specified in the abstract.

Citation

@article{Song2025Radiative,
  author = {Song, Ci and Werapitiya, Geethma and McCoy, Daniel T. and Watson‐Parris, Duncan and Gettelman, Andrew and Eidhammer, Trude},
  title = {Radiative and Precipitation Processes Make it Easier to Match the Temperature Record and Harder to Constrain Future Warming},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025gl117386},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl117386}
}