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Fewer clouds in the Mediterranean: consistency of observations and climate simulations

Clouds play a major role in the climate system, but large uncertainties remain about their decadal variations. Here we report a widespread decrease in cloud cover since the 1970 s over the Mediterranean region, in particular during the 1970 s–1980 s, especially in the central and eastern areas and during springtime. Confidence in these findings is high due to the good agreement between the interannual variations of cloud cover provided by surface observations and several satellite-derived and reanalysis products, although some discrepancies exist in their trends. Climate model simulations of the historical experiment from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) also exhibit a decrease in cloud cover over the Mediterranean since the 1970 s, in agreement with surface observations, although the rate of decrease is slightly lower. The observed northward expansion of the Hadley cell is discussed as a possible cause of detected trends

Several authors are involved within the projects CGL2010-18546, CGL2014-55976-R, and CGL2014-52135-C03-01 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

Nature Publishing Group

Director: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Espanya)
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Espanya)
Autor: Sánchez Lorenzo, Arturo
Enríquez Alonso, Aarón
Calbó Angrill, Josep
González Gutiérrez, Josep Abel
Wild, Martin
Folini, Doris
Norris, Joel R.
Vicente-Serrano, Sergio M.
Resum: Clouds play a major role in the climate system, but large uncertainties remain about their decadal variations. Here we report a widespread decrease in cloud cover since the 1970 s over the Mediterranean region, in particular during the 1970 s–1980 s, especially in the central and eastern areas and during springtime. Confidence in these findings is high due to the good agreement between the interannual variations of cloud cover provided by surface observations and several satellite-derived and reanalysis products, although some discrepancies exist in their trends. Climate model simulations of the historical experiment from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) also exhibit a decrease in cloud cover over the Mediterranean since the 1970 s, in agreement with surface observations, although the rate of decrease is slightly lower. The observed northward expansion of the Hadley cell is discussed as a possible cause of detected trends
Several authors are involved within the projects CGL2010-18546, CGL2014-55976-R, and CGL2014-52135-C03-01 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness
Accés al document: http://hdl.handle.net/2072/299299
Llenguatge: eng
Editor: Nature Publishing Group
Drets: Attribution 3.0 Spain
URI Drets: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/
Matèria: Climatologia -- Simulació, Mètodes de
Climatology -- Simulation methods
Núvols
Clouds
Títol: Fewer clouds in the Mediterranean: consistency of observations and climate simulations
Tipus: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Repositori: Recercat

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