Apportionment of the Pre-Industrial to Present-Day Climate Forcing by
Methane using UKESM1: The role of the cloud radiative effect
Abstract
The pre-industrial (Year 1850) to present-day (Year 2014) increase in
methane from 808 to 1831 ppb leads to an effective radiative forcing
(ERF) of 0.97±0.04 Wm‑2 in the United Kingdom’s Earth
System Model, UKESM1. The direct methane contribution is 0.54±0.04
Wm‑2. It is better represented in UKESM1 than in its
predecessor due to the inclusion of shortwave absorption, updates to the
longwave spectral properties, and no interference from dust. An indirect
ozone ERF of 0.13-0.20 Wm-2 is largely due to the
radiative effect of the tropospheric ozone increase outweighing that of
the stratospheric ozone decrease. An indirect water vapor ERF of
0.07±0.05/0.02±0.04 Wm‑2 is consistent with previous
estimates based on the stratospherically-adjusted radiative forcing
metric. The methane increase also leads to a cloud radiative effect of
0.12±0.02 Wm‑2 from aerosol-cloud interactions and
thermodynamic adjustments. The aerosol-mediated contribution (0.28‑0.30
Wm‑2) arises because methane-driven
oxidant changes alter the rate of new particle formation (-8 %),
causing a change in the aerosol size distribution towards fewer larger
particles. There is a resulting decrease in cloud droplet number
concentration and an increase in cloud droplet effective radius. There
are additional shortwave and longwave contributions of 0.23 and ‑0.35
Wm-2 to the cloud forcing which are
dynamically-driven. They arise from radiative heating and stabilization
of the upper troposphere, resulting in a reduction in global cloud cover
and convection. These results highlight the importance of
chemistry-aerosol-cloud interactions and dynamical adjustments in
climate forcing and can explain some of the diversity in multi-model
estimates of methane forcing.