A Hybrid Cloud Regime Methodology Used to Evaluate Southern Ocean Cloud and Shortwave Radiation Errors in ACCESS

Аннотация

A deficit of shortwave cloud forcing over the Southern Ocean is persistent in many global climate models.Cloud regimes have been widely used in model evaluation studies to make a process-oriented diagnosis of cloud parameterization errors, but cloud regimes have some limitations in resolving both observed and simulated cloud behavior. A hybrid methodology is developed for identifying cloud regimes from observed and simulated cloud simultaneously.Through this methodology, 11 hybrid cloud regimes are identified in the ACCESS1.3 model for the highlatitude Southern Ocean. The hybrid cloud regimes resolve the features of observed cloud and characterize cloud errors in the model. The simulated properties of the hybrid cloud regimes, and their occurrence over the Southern Ocean and in the context of extratropical cyclones, are evaluated, and their contributions to the shortwave radiation errors are quantified.