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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Radiation: transmission and scattering
  • Global Change: Global climate models
  • Atmospheric Processes: Convective processes
  • Atmospheric Processes: Global climate models
  • Atmospheric Processes: Radiative processes

Abstract

Effects of bias in solar radiative transfer codes on global climate model simulations

Albert Arking

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Codes commonly used in climate and weather prediction models for calculating the transfer of solar radiation in the atmosphere show systematic differences amongst each other, and even the best of codes show systematic differences with respect to observations. A 1-dimensional radiative-convective equilibrium model is used to show the effects of such bias on the global energy balance and on the global response to a doubling of CO2. We find the main impact is in the energy exchange terms between the surface and atmosphere and in the convective transport in the lower troposphere, where it exceeds 10 W m−2. The impact on model response to doubling of CO2, on the other hand, is quite small and in most cases negligible.

Received 8 June 2005; accepted 9 September 2005; published 27 October 2005.

Citation: Arking, A. (2005), Effects of bias in solar radiative transfer codes on global climate model simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L20717, doi:10.1029/2005GL023644.

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