Data · dataset · 2026
Impact of host climate model on contrail cirrus effective radiative forcing estimates
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
Estimates of aviation effective radiative forcing (ERF) indicate that contrail cirrus is currently its largest contributor, although with a substantial associated uncertainty of â¼â70â%.
Description
Here, we implement the contrail parameterisation developed for the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) in the UK Met Office Unified Model (UM), allowing us to compare, for the first time, the impact of key features of the host climate model on contrail cirrus ERF.
We find that differences in background humidity between the models result in the UM-simulated contrail fractions being 2 to 3 times larger than in CAM. Additionally, the models show contrasting responses in overall global cloud fraction, with contrails increasing the total cloud fraction in the UM and decreasing it in CAM. Differences in the complexity of the cloud microphysics schemes lead to significant differences in simulated changes to cloud ice water content due to aviation.
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After compensating for the unrealistically low contrail optical depth in the UM, we estimate the 2018 contrail cirrus ERF to be 40.8âmWâmâ2 in the UM, compared to 60.1âmWâmâ2 in CAM. These values highlight the substantial uncertainty in contrail cirrus ERF due to differences in microphysics and radiation schemes between the two models. We also find a factor-of-8 uncertainty in contrail cirrus ERF due to existing uncertainty in contrail cirrus optical depth.
Future research should focus on better representing microphysical and radiative contrail characteristics in climate models and on improved observational constraints.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7gx4gx6 ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/impact-of-host-climate-model-on-contrail-cirrus-effect… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=de4dd559-cae9-4873-986e-d25dd9abb… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
- Inferred from text
- Climate model simulation 65%
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | de4dd559-cae9-4873-986e-d25dd9abbccb | 9 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].local:method:climate-model | enrichment · data ucar edu | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (65%) |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |