Evaporative Resistance is of Equal Importance as Surface Albedo in High Latitude Surface Temperatures Due to Cloud Feedbacks

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085663. This is version 2 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Jinhyuk E Kim , Marysa M. Lague , Sam Pennypacker, Eliza Joy Dawson, Abigail L. S. Swann

Abstract

Arctic vegetation is known to influence Arctic surface temperatures through albedo. However, it is less clear how plant evaporative resistance and albedo independently influence surface climate at high latitudes. We use surface properties derived from two common Arctic tree types to simulate the climate response to a change in land surface albedo and evaporative resistance in factorial combinations. We find that lower evaporative resistances lead to an increase of low clouds. The reflection of light due to the difference in albedos between vegetation types is similar to the loss of incident sunlight due to increased cloud cover resulting from lower evaporative resistance from vegetation change. Our results demonstrate that realistic changes in evaporative resistance can have an equal impact on surface temperature to changes in albedo, and that cloud feedbacks play a first order role in determining the surface climate response to changes in Arctic land cover.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/osf.io/s5m4u

Subjects

Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Keywords

arctic vegetation, cloud feedbacks, evaporative resistance, land atmosphere interactions, surface energy budget, surface land temperature

Dates

Published: 2020-05-24 22:16

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License

Academic Free License (AFL) 3.0