Recent progress toward reducing the uncertainty in tropical low cloud feedback and climate sensitivity: a review

Geoscience Letters

Official Journal of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS)

Table 1 Factors for low cloud feedback

	Change in a warming environment	Resultant changes in BL and cloud	Resultant low cloud feedback
SST (Hanson 1991; Clement et al. 2009)	Increasing	Deeper BL, less cloud	Positive
SST-related process: Surface evaporation (Chung and Teixeira 2012; Rieck et al. 2012)	Increasing	Deeper BL, less cloud	Positive
SST-related process: Moisture contrast at inversion (Brient and Bony 2013; van der Dussen et al. 2015)	Increasing	Deeper BL, less cloud	Positive
Strength of inversion (Klein and Hartmann 1993; Wood and Bretherton 2006)	Increasing	Shallower BL, more cloud	Negative
FT relative humidity (Klein et al. 1995; Lacagnina and Selten 2013; Myers and Norris 2015)	Decreasing	Decreasing high and middle clouds, but uncertain in low cloud	Uncertain
FT subsidence (Myers and Norris 2013)	Weakening	Higher cloud top, more cloud	Negative
Surface wind speed (Klein et al. 1995; Qu et al. 2015b)	Uncertain		Uncertain
Cold advection (Klein et al. 1995; Mansbach and Norris 2007; Myers and Norris 2015)	Enhanced	More convective BL, more cloud	Negative

Left column indicates physical processes affecting low cloud cover (LCC) over the subtropical ocean. The second, third, and fourth columns from the left indicate the projected change in a warming climate, resultant change in low cloud and boundary layer (BL), and resultant low cloud feedback, respectively (Qu et al. 2015b; Myers and Norris 2016)