Effects of snow grain shape on climate simulations: sensitivity tests with the Norwegian Earth System Model

Räisänen, Petri; Makkonen, Risto; Kirkevåg, Alf; Debernard, Jens B.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2919-2017

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2919-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Interactions between climate change and the Cryosphere: SVALI,...

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2919-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 6

Research article

|

13 Dec 2017

Research article |

| 13 Dec 2017

Effects of snow grain shape on climate simulations: sensitivity tests with the Norwegian Earth System Model

Petri Räisänen, Risto Makkonen, Alf Kirkevåg, and Jens B. Debernard

Download

Final revised paper (published on 13 Dec 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 07 Aug 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Sep 2017
- AC1: 'Response to Referee 1', Petri Räisänen, 30 Oct 2017
RC2: 'Review of ”Effects of snow grain shape on climate simulations: Sensitivity tests with the Norwegian Earth System Model” by Räisänen et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Oct 2017
- AC2: 'Response to Referee 2', Petri Räisänen, 30 Oct 2017
SC1: 'Short Comment', Cenlin He, 18 Oct 2017
- AC3: 'Response to Cenlin He', Petri Räisänen, 30 Oct 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Petri Räisänen on behalf of the Authors (30 Oct 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (07 Nov 2017) by Becky Alexander

AR by Petri Räisänen on behalf of the Authors (08 Nov 2017)

Short summary

While snow grains are non-spherical, spheres are often assumed in radiation calculations. Here, we replace spherical snow grains with non-spherical snow grains in a climate model. This leads to a somewhat higher snow albedo (by 0.02–0.03), increased snow and sea ice cover, and a distinctly colder climate (by over 1 K in the global mean). It also impacts the radiative effects of aerosols in snow. Overall, this work highlights the important role of snow albedo parameterization for climate models.