Clouding the forecast: Why so many climate models are wrong about rate of Arctic warming
phys.org/news/2025-05-clouding-climate-wrong-arctic.html
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Study identifies clouds as possible source of model errorsTwenty-one of 30 climate models overestimated the ice-to-liquid ratio in Arctic winter clouds against satellite observations.
- The Arctic has warmed three to four times faster than the global average in recent decades, but current climate models do not capture this pace.
- A study by Momoka Nakanishi and Takuro Michibata of Kyushu University was published in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research on April 29.
- The researchers analyzed 30 climate models and compared them with satellite observations of Arctic winter clouds from the past decade; 21 models significantly overestimated the ice-to-liquid ratio.
- The study says models overestimate future Arctic warming because they underestimate the liquid water already present and therefore assume that the cloud feedback will persist too long.
The biggest uncertainty in our forecasts is due to clouds. Fixing these models is essential not just for the Arctic, but for understanding its impact on weather and climate change across the globe.— Takuro Michibata, Associate Professor at Kyushu University, commenting on cloud emissivity feedback in Arctic warming study
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Main Topics
current rise in Earth's average temperature and related large-scale shifts in weather patterns due to man-made gasocrine processes.
energy that is transferred from one body to another as the result of a difference in temperature
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