CHAPTER 7. CHALLENGES CONFRONTING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CLOUDS, RADIATION, PRECIPITATION
7.8 CLOSING COMMENTS
clear consensus on this effect, as summarized in Tao et al. (2012) with contrasting conclusions drawn from modelling and observational evidence for such intensification is scant (e.g. Storer et al.
2013).
Figure 9. A clear example that emphasizes how the albedo of low clouds is highly buffered though processes that govern the water balance of clouds. The proportional change in the albedo of ship track portions of clouds contrasted against nearby clouds versus the change in liquid water path of
the ship tracks. These data are from compilations of ship tracks observed by A-Train data as reported by Christensen and Stephens, 2011. The regime of the Twomey effect is noted in red and
data from an airborne ship-track campaign (E-PEACE) are also noted. The inset shows the cloud particle size decreases for all ship tracks regardless of how the data are binned
(modified from Chen et al. 2012).
7.8 CLOSING COMMENTS
This chapter attempts to highlight some of the challenges, and thus opportunities, that confront us in understanding how radiation, clouds and precipitation link together to shape our planet’s water cycle and energy balance. The chapter focuses on the important ways water and energy connect, describe some consequences of them, and the challenges confronting us in developing a
quantitative understanding of the relationships that connects one to the other.
Unmet challenges are introduced first in terms of the global energy balance, and then
systematically in terms of finer and finer scales of interactions ending with a discussion of cloud microphysical influences within the context of cloud-aerosol interactions. The four main science questions posed under the climate sensitivity grand challenges of the WCRP are briefly described.
Since we know long-term climate model biases typically develop from short term errors in weather-related processes that involve clouds and convection, an important step for in progress on these climate grand challenges require advances in cloud treatment in weather prediction.
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