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Science 27 January 1995:
Vol. 267. no. 5197, pp. 499 - 503
DOI: 10.1126/science.267.5197.499
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Articles

Warm Pool Heat Budget and Shortwave Cloud Forcing: A Missing Physics?

V. Ramanathan 1, B. Subasilar 1, G. J. Zhang 1, W. Conant 1, R. D. Cess 2, J. T. Kiehi 3, H. Grassi 4, and L. Shi 5

1 Center for Clouds, Chemistry and Climate, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
2 Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres, Marine Science Research Center, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
3 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307, USA.
4 Max-Planck-Institut Fur Meteorologie, Bundesstrabetae 55, D-020146 Hamburg, Germany
5 SeaSpace Corporation, San Diego, CA 92126, USA.

Ship observations and ocean models indicate that heat export from the mixed layer of the western Pacific warm pool is small (<20 watts per square meter). This value was used to deduce the effect of clouds on the net solar radiation at the sea surface. The inferred magnitude of this shortwave cloud forcing was large (ap – 100 watts per square meter) and exceeded its observed value at the top of the atmosphere by a factor of about 1.5. This result implies that clouds (at least over the warm pool) reduce net solar radiation at the sea surface not only by reflecting a significant amount back to space, but also by trapping a large amount in the cloudy atmosphere, an inference that is at variance with most model results. The excess cloud absorption, if confirmed, has many climatic implications, including a significant reduction in the required tropics to extrattropics heat transport in the oceans.

Submitted on August 24, 1994
Accepted on November 14, 1994


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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Response: How Much Solar Radiation Do Clouds Absorb?.
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