Instantaneous heating rate forcing differentiates tropical high-cloud adjustments across greenhouse gases
- 1Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, NJ, USA.
- 2Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Abstract
Tropical high clouds are central to large-scale circulation and the hydrological cycle. The consensus expectation is that they rise and contract under surface warming, but their fast adjustment to greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations is diverse. All GHGs reduce atmospheric longwave loss, yet tropical high clouds can increase or decrease depending on the gas. Using a model hierarchy with unchanged sea surface temperature, we find increased tropical high cloud for CO2 and decreased tropical high cloud for CH4 and N2O. These diverging responses are primarily driven by changes in the vertical structure of upper-tropospheric radiative heating, with stratification changes playing a secondary role. This study reveals that instantaneous radiative forcing dominates changes in heating profile there, establishing a mechanistic link between the spectroscopy of specific GHGs and their cloud adjustments. These results highlight the importance of the vertical structure of radiative forcing beyond the conventional top-of-atmosphere metrics.
Versions
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BibTeX
@article{chen2026instantaneous,
title = {{Instantaneous heating rate forcing differentiates tropical high-cloud adjustments across greenhouse gases}},
author = {Yan-Ting Chen and Timothy M. Merlis and Yi Huang},
journal = {Science Advances},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aef7462},
url = {https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aef7462},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Instantaneous heating rate forcing differentiates tropical high-cloud adjustments across greenhouse gases
AU - Yan-Ting Chen
AU - Timothy M. Merlis
AU - Yi Huang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/02
JO - Science Advances
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aef7462
UR - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aef7462
AB - Tropical high clouds are central to large-scale circulation and the hydrological cycle. The consensus expectation is that they rise and contract under surface warming, but their fast adjustment to greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations is diverse. All GHGs reduce atmospheric longwave loss, yet tropical high clouds can increase or decrease depending on the gas. Using a model hierarchy with unchanged sea surface temperature, we find increased tropical high cloud for CO2 and decreased tropical high cloud for CH4 and N2O. These diverging responses are primarily driven by changes in the vertical structure of upper-tropospheric radiative heating, with stratification changes playing a secondary role. This study reveals that instantaneous radiative forcing dominates changes in heating profile there, establishing a mechanistic link between the spectroscopy of specific GHGs and their cloud adjustments. These results highlight the importance of the vertical structure of radiative forcing beyond the conventional top-of-atmosphere metrics.
SN - 2375-2548
ER -