Radiative forcing of climate in the western Antarctic Peninsula: Effects of cloud, surface, and aerosol properties

Polar regions are expected to show early and extreme responses to a rise in average global temperatures. The region west of the Antarctic Peninsula has shown a significant rise in temperature of the past half century while temperatures over the rest of the continent are decreasing. Approximately half of the warming over the western Antarctic Peninsula has been explained by changes in atmospheric circulation. This research has examined local climate feedback processes involving aerosols, clouds, and surface properties relative to sea ice cover, to explain the remainder of the warming, and addresses the most appropriate approach in examining local radiative processes. Two data sets are used: a highly resolved ground-based data set from the spring and summer season of 1999–2000 at Palmer Station, Antarctica and a 14 year satellite-derived data set. A three-dimensional radiative transfer model is shown to perform better than the plane-parallel models traditionally used for this application. Aerosol concentrations are low, as expected, and have a typical optical depth of 0.05 which has little effect on surface radiation budgets and climate feedback processes. An absorption process is found on three clear-sky days that accounts for 5–20 W·m−2 of energy absorbed by the atmosphere. The absorption process is of unknown origin. Cloud properties over the short- and long-term were found to be invariant with time and changes in temperature except in the summer season. Cloud radiative forcing was negative throughout the 14 year time period, but the majority of this effect was attributed to changes in surface properties (decreasing reflectance) rather than increasing cloud amount or thickness. The trend in cloud cover over the long-term and the effect of clouds on climate appears to be different in the region of the western Antarctic Peninsula than in the Arctic.