Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

CLOUD FEEDBACKS

The cooling of light rains in a warming world

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 468–470 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

Recent changes to how clouds are represented in global models, especially over the Southern Ocean, resulted in increased climate warming. Correcting rain processes in a model shows improved cloud representation but leads to a greatly enhanced negative feedback, offsetting documented increases in model climate sensitivity.

The magnitude of twenty-first-century warming is not solely determined by the radiative forcing of greenhouse gases. Feedbacks play a decisive role, and cloud feedbacks — specifically whether clouds will evolve to warm or cool the climate system — are the largest source of uncertainty of all radiative feedbacks1. This is a consequence of the multi-dimensional nature of cloud feedbacks involving a range of properties and mechanistic pathways. Observations, typically in the form of radiative flux measurements at the top of the atmosphere, neither uniquely constrain cloud property changes nor the feedback mechanisms involved, so climate models can help understand these sensitivities. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Johannes Mülmenstädt and colleagues2 demonstrate that correcting a prevailing rain bias present in most models grossly influences cloud feedbacks by affecting the predicted lifetime and water content of low clouds.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Schematic of cloud feedback processes.

References

  1. Boucher, O. et al. In IPCC Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) Ch. 7 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

  2. Mülmenstadt, J. et al. Nat. Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01038-1 (2021).

  3. Bodas-Salcedo, A. et al. J. Adv. Model. Earth Sy. 11, 1735–1758 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Zelinka, M. D. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 47, e2019GL085782 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Stephens, G. et al. Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc. 99, 569–581 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Stephens, G. L. et al. J. Geophys. Res. 115, D24211 (2010).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Kay, J. E. et al. J. Geophys. Res. 123, 4294–4309 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Golaz, J.-C., Horowitz, L. W. & Levy, H. II Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 2246–2251 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Jing, X. W. & Suzuki, K. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 10729–10737 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Betts, A. K. & Harshvardhan J. Geophys. Res. 92, 8483–8485 (1987).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Wood, R. & Bretherton, C. S. J. Climate 19, 6425–6432 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Fowler, H. J. et al. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (in the press).

  13. Stephens, G. L. J. Clim. 18, 237–273 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Thriving on Our Changing Planet: A Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space (The National Academies Press, 2018).

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Graeme L. Stephens

Authors
  1. Graeme L. Stephens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Graeme L. Stephens.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Stephens, G.L. The cooling of light rains in a warming world. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 468–470 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01056-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01056-z

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing