Decomposing Cloud‑Radiative Feedbacks by Cloud‑Top Phase

Changes in cloud scattering properties and emissivity that arise from atmospheric warming cause substantial radiative feedbacks in model projections of anthropogenic climate change, and the relative importance of the underlying mechanisms is poorly understood. One leading hypothesis is that ice-to-liquid conversions cause clouds to optically thicken, producing a major negative feedback. We test this hypothesis by developing a method to decompose cloud radiative feedbacks by cloud-top phase. The method is applied to an ensemble of six state-of-the-art global climate models run with prescribed sea surface temperature. In these simulations, the global mean of the net cloud scattering and emissivity feedback from cloud-phase conversions ranges from −0.17 to −0.01 W m−2 K−1, while the overall net cloud feedback ranges from 0.02 to 0.91 W m−2 K−1. The multimodel mean of the cloud scattering and emissivity feedback from cloud-phase conversions is approximately 19% of the magnitude of the multimodel mean of the overall cloud feedback (−0.10 vs 0.52 W m−2 K−1). These results indicate that cloud-phase conversions cause a robust negative feedback by changing cloud scattering and emissivity, but this mechanism makes a modest contribution to the overall cloud feedback at the global scale.