Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Budget and Cloud Radiative Effects over the
Tibetan Plateau and Adjacent Monsoon Regions from CMIP6 simulations
Abstract
This study investigates top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation budget (Rt)
and cloud radiative effects (CREs) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and
adjacent Asian monsoon regions including Eastern China (EC) and South
Asia (SA) using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6)
simulations. Considerable simulation biases occur but specific causes
differ over these regions. Over the TP, most models underestimate the
intensity of annual mean Rt and cloud radiative cooling effect, and they
are hard to capture the Rt over the TP during the cold-warm transition
period with the largest model uncertainty. The biases in surface air
temperature and cloud fractions contribute to cloud-radiation biases
over the western and eastern TP, respectively. Over EC, the intensity of
Rt and cloud radiative cooling effect is seriously underestimated
especially in the springtime when the model spread is large, and their
biases are closely related to less low-middle cloud fractions and weaker
ascending motion. Over SA, simulation biases mainly arise from longwave
radiative components associated with less high cloud fraction and weaker
convection, with the large model spread in the summertime. The annual
cycles of Rt and CREs over EC and SA can be well reproduced by most
models while the summertime peak of net CRE over the TP is later than
the observation. The Rt and its simulation bias strongly depend on cloud
radiative cooling effect over EC, SA, and the eastern TP. Our results
demonstrate that contemporary climate models still have obvious
difficulties in representing complex and various cloud-radiation
processes in Asian monsoon regions.