Climate Dynamics Group
 at the University of California, Santa Cruz

The influence of climate feedbacks on regional hydrological changes under global warming

research paper
  • Dave Bonan
  • Nicole Feldl
  • Nick Siler
  • Jen Kay
  • Kyle Armour
  • Ian Eisenman
  • Gerard Roe
updates ↓

01/20/24 Bonan, D. B., N. Feldl, N. Siler, J. E. Kay, K. C. Armour, I. Eisenman, and G. H. Roe (2024), Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2023GL106648, doi:10.1029/2023GL106648.

The influence of climate feedbacks on regional hydrological changes under warming is poorly understood. Here, a moist energy balance model (MEBM) with a Hadley Cell parameterization is used to isolate the influence of climate feedbacks on changes in zonal-mean precipitation-minus-evaporation (P-E) under greenhouse-gas forcing. It is shown that cloud feedbacks act to narrow bands of tropical P-E and increase P-E in the deep tropics. The surface-albedo feedback shifts the location of maximum tropical P-E and increases P-E in the polar regions. The intermodel spread in the P-E changes associated with feedbacks arises mainly from cloud feedbacks, with the lapse-rate and surface-albedo feedbacks playing important roles in the polar regions. The P-E change associated with cloud feedback locking in the MEBM is similar to that of a climate model with inactive cloud feedbacks. This work highlights the unique role that climate feedbacks play in causing deviations from the “wet-gets-wetter, dry-gets-drier” paradigm.