Towards enhancing climate projections through improved understanding and simulations of marine low clouds
Qinggang Gao
The response of low clouds to warming is the greatest source of uncertainty in climate projections. Current global climate models at coarse resolutions struggle to represent clouds, particularly low clouds driven by shallow convection. Although global kilometer-resolution simulations may become feasible for climate projections by 2060s, higher resolution alone does not guarantee more accurate predictions. Building upon the high-resolution regional climate modelling products focused on Australia (BARRA-R2, BARRA-C2, and BARPA-C), we evaluate the added value of high-resolution simulations in representing low clouds and radiation. Our findings suggest that simulations at 4.4 km resolution, typically considered as convection-permitting, may not fully resolve the complexities of low clouds and associated shortwave radiation, leading to notable and distinct bias compared to observations. The underlying mechanisms are explored with a series of sensitivity tests using ACCESS-rAM3, and potential pathways for improvements are discussed.
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