Professor Yi Huang
Spectral signatures of climate change
The Earth climate is shaped by the radiation energy balance and the fundamental physics behind, such as the greenhouse effect, is characterized by unique features in the atmospheric radiation spectra. Hence, the measurements of spectral resolved atmospheric radiance provide an advantageous means for detecting and understanding the climate change driven by different forcing and feedback mechanisms. In this talk, I will first demonstrate that the long-term measurements of the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) constitute a radiative Keeling curve, which can be used to benchmark climate changes and especially the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Then I will discuss the results of an AERI data-based quantification of the climate forcing and feedback, by leveraging their distinct spectral signatures. Among the results is imperatively needed observational quantification of the longwave feedback of clouds, which we find differs substantially in different regions. In the mid-latitude land region, it acts as a negative feedback partially offsetting the increase of atmospheric greenhouse effect, while in the Arctic it is a positive feedback contributing to the surface warming amplification