Radiative and Precipitation Processes Make it Easier to Match the Temperature Record and Harder to Constrain Future Warming

Ci Song; Geethma Werapitiya; Daniel T. McCoy; Duncan Watson-Parris; Andrew Gettelman; Trude Eidhammer

doi:10.1029/2025GL117386

Radiative and Precipitation Processes Make it Easier to Match the Temperature Record and Harder to Constrain Future Warming

Ci Song
, Geethma Werapitiya
, Daniel T. McCoy
, Duncan Watson-Parris
, Andrew Gettelman
, Trude Eidhammer

University of Wyoming
University of California at San Diego
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
National Center for Atmospheric Research

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

By examining the historical temperature record during the industrial era, we can infer the climate's sensitivity to radiative perturbations, given knowledge of historical forcings. Energy conservation enforces a negative correlation between the climate feedback and historical forcing for a given change in global-mean temperature. Here, we examine the negative correlation between the radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions and the shortwave cloud feedback to warming that appears in a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE). The PPE is not tuned to match the historical record, yet a negative correlation emerges over the extratropics due to the combined effects of liquid cloud precipitation efficiency and radiative saturation in the shortwave. Using an energy balance model, we argue that these processes combine to push Earth System Models to yield a temperature record in keeping with observations, but also limit our ability to constrain future warming posterior with the temperature record.

Original language	English
Article number	e2025GL117386
Number of pages	13
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	52
Issue number	24
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL117386
State	Published - Dec 17 2025
Externally published	Yes

Funding

We would like to acknowledge the use of computational resources (https://doi.org/10.5065/D6RX99HX) at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center provided by the National Science Foundation and the State of Wyoming, and supported by NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory. CS and DTM were supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Regional and Global Modeling Analysis award DE-SC0025208. GW and DTM's efforts were supported under NASA Precipitation Measurement Mission Grant 80NSSC22K0609. The contributions of DTM were additionally supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric System Research Federal Award DE-SC002227 and U.S. Department of Energy's Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research DE-SC0024161. DWP acknowledges funding from U.S. National Science Foundation award 2441832. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Department of Energy	DE-SC0025208, DE-SC002227, DE-SC0024161
U.S. National Science Foundation	2441832
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	80NSSC22K0609
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)	DE-SC0024161

Keywords

Earth system modeling
aerosol-cloud interactions
cloud feedback
energy balance model
future warming
radiative saturation
Aerosol-cloud interactions
Cloud feedback
Energy balance model
Future warming
Radiative saturation

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10.1029/2025GL117386

Cite this

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title = "Radiative and Precipitation Processes Make it Easier to Match the Temperature Record and Harder to Constrain Future Warming",

abstract = "By examining the historical temperature record during the industrial era, we can infer the climate's sensitivity to radiative perturbations, given knowledge of historical forcings. Energy conservation enforces a negative correlation between the climate feedback and historical forcing for a given change in global-mean temperature. Here, we examine the negative correlation between the radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions and the shortwave cloud feedback to warming that appears in a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE). The PPE is not tuned to match the historical record, yet a negative correlation emerges over the extratropics due to the combined effects of liquid cloud precipitation efficiency and radiative saturation in the shortwave. Using an energy balance model, we argue that these processes combine to push Earth System Models to yield a temperature record in keeping with observations, but also limit our ability to constrain future warming posterior with the temperature record.",

keywords = "Earth system modeling, aerosol-cloud interactions, cloud feedback, energy balance model, future warming, radiative saturation, Aerosol-cloud interactions, Cloud feedback, Energy balance model, Future warming, Radiative saturation",

author = "Ci Song and Geethma Werapitiya and McCoy, \{Daniel T.\} and Duncan Watson-Parris and Andrew Gettelman and Trude Eidhammer",

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doi = "10.1029/2025GL117386",

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AU - Song, Ci

AU - Werapitiya, Geethma

AU - McCoy, Daniel T.

AU - Watson-Parris, Duncan

AU - Gettelman, Andrew

AU - Eidhammer, Trude

PY - 2025/12/17

Y1 - 2025/12/17

N2 - By examining the historical temperature record during the industrial era, we can infer the climate's sensitivity to radiative perturbations, given knowledge of historical forcings. Energy conservation enforces a negative correlation between the climate feedback and historical forcing for a given change in global-mean temperature. Here, we examine the negative correlation between the radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions and the shortwave cloud feedback to warming that appears in a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE). The PPE is not tuned to match the historical record, yet a negative correlation emerges over the extratropics due to the combined effects of liquid cloud precipitation efficiency and radiative saturation in the shortwave. Using an energy balance model, we argue that these processes combine to push Earth System Models to yield a temperature record in keeping with observations, but also limit our ability to constrain future warming posterior with the temperature record.

AB - By examining the historical temperature record during the industrial era, we can infer the climate's sensitivity to radiative perturbations, given knowledge of historical forcings. Energy conservation enforces a negative correlation between the climate feedback and historical forcing for a given change in global-mean temperature. Here, we examine the negative correlation between the radiative forcing due to aerosol-cloud interactions and the shortwave cloud feedback to warming that appears in a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE). The PPE is not tuned to match the historical record, yet a negative correlation emerges over the extratropics due to the combined effects of liquid cloud precipitation efficiency and radiative saturation in the shortwave. Using an energy balance model, we argue that these processes combine to push Earth System Models to yield a temperature record in keeping with observations, but also limit our ability to constrain future warming posterior with the temperature record.

KW - Earth system modeling

KW - aerosol-cloud interactions

KW - cloud feedback

KW - energy balance model

KW - future warming

KW - radiative saturation

KW - Aerosol-cloud interactions

KW - Cloud feedback

KW - Energy balance model

KW - Future warming

KW - Radiative saturation

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105025142088

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DO - 10.1029/2025GL117386

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SN - 0094-8276

VL - 52

JO - Geophysical Research Letters

JF - Geophysical Research Letters

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ER -

Radiative and Precipitation Processes Make it Easier to Match the Temperature Record and Harder to Constrain Future Warming

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

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