Geophysical Research Letters
Supporting Information for
Cirrus feedback on inter-annual climate fluctuations
C. Zhou1,2, A.E. Dessler1, M.D. Zelinka2, P. Yang1, T. Wang1,3
1
2
Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA 77843
Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
Livermore, California, USA
3
Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Contents of this file
Figures S1 to S4
Introduction
Fig. S1 shows the average cloud radiative effect of cirrus over clear-skies, cirrus over lowcloud layers, cirrus over mid-cloud layers and cirrus over high-thick clouds, respectively.
Figs. S2-S4 show the simulated CALIPSO high cloud fraction response to inter-annual and
long-term surface warming in climate models. The models come from Atmospheric Model
Intercomparison Project (AMIP), which is an integral part of Coupled Model Intercomparison
Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). AMIP simulations are constrained by realistic sea surface temperature
and sea ice from 1979 to near present.
1
Figure S1. Average cloud radiative effect of cirrus over clear-skies, cirrus over low-cloud layers,
cirrus over mid-cloud layers and cirrus over high-thick clouds. The upper panels are for the SW
component, the middle panels are for LW component, and the bottom panels are the net
(SW+LW).
2
Figure S2. Response of simulated CALIPSO cloud fraction to tropical (upper panels) and global
(lower panels) surface warming, calculated from CMIP5 GFDL-CM3 AMIP simulations. Blue
lines are calculated from five 6-years periods, and the red lines are calculated from 30-years
trend (1979-2008). Left panels are tropical cloud responses, and right panels are global average
cloud responses. All types of high clouds are included in the CALIPSO-simulator cloud fraction.
Cloud response to tropical surface temperature changes has very small variation among 6-years
periods, and it is consistent to our conclusion that cirrus clouds are better correlated with the
tropical surface temperature.
3
Figure S3. Same as Fig. S2, except for IPSL-CM5A-MR AMIP simulations.
4
Figure S4. Same as Fig. S2, except for CESM1-CAM5 AMIP simulations.
5