Please answer the questions in one to two sentences, but answer it completely. T
ID: 233381 • Letter: P
Question
Please answer the questions in one to two sentences, but answer it completely. Thank you!
Part1) Describe the ice-albedo feedback and how it influences overall climate sensitivity.
Part2) Describe how low clouds affect the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) energy budget. Do they warm or cool the climate overall? Why? [Note: We are not asking you to describe the cloud feedback, just what happens when you have a cloud compared with what happens when you don't.]
Part3) Describe how high clouds affect the TOA energy budget. Do they warm or cool the climate overall? Why?
Part4) Define "parameterizations" and explain why they are necessary in climate models.
Explanation / Answer
1) When ice present on the pole sides of the earth meltsand convert itself into water then a dark ocean water is exposed inspite of white, highly relected ice over there. Since, the albedo is lower for water than ice, more solar energy is absorbed, and less is reflected from its surface. Thus,continouous absorption of the energy causes more ice to melt, which, in turn, lowers the albedo. It works as a feedback which directly causes more energy to be absorbed and eventually more warming climates.
2) & 3) Earth’s heat from the Sun transfers heat from one part of the surface to another; Similarly, it moves heat from the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere (low clouds) back to space and this flow of incoming and outgoing energy is Earth’s energy budget.
Generally, low clouds helps to cool the Earth system. Because lower clouds are much thicker than high clouds, they are opaque: they do not let as much of solar radiation onto the Earth's surface.
4) The specific physical processes that can apply on a very smaller scale than the characteristic griding interval i.e. clouds etc .If the complete physical process of these characteristics (clouds,) were to be computed explicitly/separately at every time interval/step and at every grid-point, the huge heaps of data produced would be a difficult task for the computer.
Further, these processes cannot be eliminated and edited, so a very sophisticated equations are developed to represent the gross result of the many small scale processes within a grid cell as precisely as possible. This approach is known as parameterization. thus, it gives us more efficient ways for incorporating these small scale processes into climate models.