Yan Xia1, Yongyun Hu2, and Yi Huang1
1Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
2Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
Abstract
We investigate the climatic impact of stratospheric ozone recovery (SOR), with a focus on the surface temperature change in atmosphere–slab ocean coupled climate simulations. We find that although SOR would cause significant surface warming (global mean: 0.2 K) in a climate free of clouds and sea ice, it causes surface cooling (-0.06 K) in the real climate. The results here are especially interesting in that the stratosphere-adjusted radiative forcing is positive in both cases. Radiation diagnosis shows that the surface cooling is mainly due to a strong radiative effect resulting from significant reduction of global high clouds and, to a lesser extent, from an increase in high-latitude sea ice. Our simulation experiments suggest that clouds and sea ice are sensitive to stratospheric ozone perturbation, which constitutes a significant radiative adjustment that influences the sign and magnitude of the global surface temperature change.
Citation: Xia, Y., Y. Hu, and Y. Huang, 2016: Strong modification of stratospheric ozone forcing by cloud and sea-ice adjustments. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 7559–7567, doi:10.5194/acp-16-7559-2016.
