The Nonlinear Radiative Feedback Effects in the Arctic Warming

Abstract

The analysis of radiative feedbacks requires the separation and quantification of the radiative contributions of different feedback variables, such as atmospheric temperature, water vapor, surface albedo, cloud, etc. It has been a challenge to include the nonlinear radiative effects of these variables in the feedback analysis. For instance, the kernel method that is widely used in the literature assumes linearity and completely neglects the nonlinear effects. Nonlinear effects may arise from the nonlinear dependency of radiation on each of the feedback variables, especially when the change in them is of large magnitude such as in the case of the Arctic climate change. Nonlinear effects may also arise from the coupling between different feedback variables, which often occurs as feedback variables including temperature, humidity and cloud tend to vary in a coherent manner. In this paper, we use brute-force radiation model calculations to quantify both univariate and multivariate nonlinear feedback effects and provide a qualitative explanation of their causes based on simple analytical models. We identify these prominent nonlinear effects in the CO2-driven Arctic climate change: 1) the univariate nonlinear effect in the surface albedo feedback, which results from a nonlinear dependency of planetary albedo on the surface albedo, which causes the linear kernel method to overestimate the univariate surface albedo feedback; 2) the coupling effect between surface albedo and cloud, which offsets the univariate surface albedo feedback; 3) the coupling effect between atmospheric temperature and cloud, which offsets the very strong univariate temperature feedback. These results illustrate the hidden biases in the linear feedback analysis methods and highlight the need for nonlinear methods in feedback quantification.