Publication Abstracts

Arouf et al. 2025, submitted

Arouf, A., G.V. Cesana, and J. Pilewskie, 2025: Observed Sc and Cu cloud variability and their dependency to environmental factors. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., submitted.

Clouds play a critical role in regulating Earth's energy budget, yet cloud feedbacks, especially those from low-level clouds, remain among the largest uncertainties in climate projections. Here, we extended an approach designed to discriminate stratocumulus (Sc) and cumulus (Cu) clouds in the tropics to a global scale to assess their contributions to low-cloud feedback. To this end, we first use observations and reanalyses to characterize the sensitivities of Sc and Cu to key cloud-controlling factors (CCFs). We then combine these sensitivities with CCF changes over an 11-year period to infer a CCF-based cloud change, which we validate against actual observations of the 11-year cloud change. We further use this CCF-based method to infer low cloud cover and radiation changes under different warming scenarios: idealized warming, from climate model outputs, and historical trends, from reanalysis datasets. Our results show that near-global low-cloud feedback is primarily controlled by surface warming and the strength of lower-tropospheric temperature inversions, and driven by Sc clouds. Finally, we find opposite signs of cloud feedback over the historical period (negative, 0.64±0.12 W/m2K) or in response to an abrupt 4×CO2 increase (positive, 0.54±0.17 W/m2K).

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BibTeX Citation

@unpublished{ar08200c,
  author={Arouf, A. and Cesana, G. V. and Pilewskie, J.},
  title={Observed Sc and Cu cloud variability and their dependency to environmental factors},
  year={2025},
  journal={Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres},
  note={Manuscript submitted for publication}
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - UNPB
ID  - ar08200c
AU  - Arouf, A.
AU  - Cesana, G. V.
AU  - Pilewskie, J.
PY  - 2025
TI  - Observed Sc and Cu cloud variability and their dependency to environmental factors
JA  - J. Geophys. Res. Atmos.
JO  - Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
ER  -

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