lmd_Dufresne2008_abstracts.html
2008 .
(3 publications)H. Chepfer, S. Bony, D. Winker, M. Chiriaco, J.-L. Dufresne, and G. Sèze. Use of CALIPSO lidar observations to evaluate the cloudiness simulated by a climate model. Geophysical Research Letters, 35:15704, August 2008. [ bib | DOI | ADS link ]
New space-borne active sensors make it possible to observe the three-dimensional structure of clouds. Here we use CALIPSO lidar observations together with a lidar simulator to evaluate the cloudiness simulated by a climate model: modeled atmospheric profiles are converted to an ensemble of subgrid-scale attenuated backscatter lidar signals from which a cloud fraction is derived. Except in regions of persistent thick upper-level clouds, the cloud fraction diagnosed through this procedure is close to that actually predicted by the model. A fractional cloudiness is diagnosed consistently from CALIPSO data at a spatio-temporal resolution comparable to that of the model. The comparison of the model's cloudiness with CALIPSO data reveals discrepancies more pronounced than in previous model evaluations based on passive observations. This suggests that space-borne lidar observations constitute a powerful tool for the evaluation of clouds in large-scale models, including marine boundary-layer clouds
J.-L. Dufresne and S. Bony. An Assessment of the Primary Sources of Spread of Global Warming Estimates from Coupled Atmosphere Ocean Models. Journal of Climate, 21:5135, 2008. [ bib | DOI | ADS link ]
O. Arzel, T. Fichefet, H. Goosse, and J.-L. Dufresne. Causes and impacts of changes in the Arctic freshwater budget during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in an AOGCM. Climate Dynamics, 30:37-58, January 2008. [ bib | DOI | ADS link ]
The fourth version of the atmosphere-ocean general circulation (AOGCM) model developed at the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL-CM4) is used to investigate the mechanisms influencing the Arctic freshwater balance in response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing. The freshwater influence on the interannual variability of deep winter oceanic convection in the Nordic Seas is also studied on the basis of correlation and regression analyses of detrended variables. The model shows that the Fram Strait outflow, which is an important source of freshwater for the northern North Atlantic, experiences a rapid and strong transition from a weak state toward a relatively strong state during 1990-2010. The authors propose that this climate shift is triggered by the retreat of sea ice in the Barents Sea during the late twentieth century. This sea ice reduction initiates a positive feedback in the atmosphere-sea ice-ocean system that alters both the atmospheric and oceanic circulations in the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (GIN)-Barents Seas sector. Around year 2080, the model predicts a second transition threshold beyond which the Fram Strait outflow is restored toward its original weak value. The long-term freshening of the GIN Seas is invoked to explain this rapid transition. It is further found that the mechanism of interannual changes in deep mixing differ fundamentally between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This difference is caused by the dominant influence of freshwater over the twenty-first century. In the GIN Seas, the interannual changes in the liquid freshwater export out of the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait combined with the interannual changes in the liquid freshwater import from the North Atlantic are shown to have a major influence in driving the interannual variability of the deep convection during the twenty-first century. South of Iceland, the other region of deep water renewal in the model, changes in freshwater import from the North Atlantic constitute the dominant forcing of deep convection on interannual time scales over the twenty-first century.