Quantifying surface cloud warming increase as Fall Arctic sea ice cover decreases

Abstract

During the Arctic night, clouds regulate surface energy budgets through longwave warming alone. During fall, any increase in low-level opaque clouds will increase surface cloud warming and could potentially delay sea ice formation. While more clouds due to fall sea ice loss have been observed, quantifying the surface warming caused by these cloud increases is observationally challenging. Here, we quantify surface cloud warming using spaceborne lidar observations. By instantaneously co-locating surface cloud warming and sea ice observations in regions where sea ice varies, we find October large surface cloud warming values (> 80 W m −2) are much more frequent (~+50%) over open water than over sea ice. Notably, in November large surface cloud warming values (> 80 W m −2) occur more frequently (∼+200%) over open water than over sea ice. These results suggest more surface warming caused by low-level opaque clouds in the future as open water persists later into the fall.