Analysis of Cloud Radiative Feedback over Multi-time Scales

Cloud radiative feedback accounts for most of the differences in the simulated climate sensitivities from coupled general circulation models that participated the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Using CMIP5 model data, we have previously studied the radiative feedback of marine boundary layer clouds (MBLCs) at both seasonal and centennial time scales and found a strong physical connection between these two time scales, which enabled us to use seasonal time scale observations to constrain model's MBLC feedback and thus the climate sensitivity. Here, we extend our previous work to study the cloud radiative feedback from all the clouds (not limited to MBLC) over seasonal, inter-annual, and centennial scales using the CMIP5 model data. We use the multi-time scale analysis results and current NASA satellite observational data to evaluate the model performance in simulating short-term feedback and constrain the future projections.