1 FEBRUARY 2023 KAUR ET AL.

775

Why Is Climate Sensitivity for Solar Forcing Smaller than for

an Equivalent CO2 Forcing?

HARPREET KAUR,a GOVINDASAMY BALA,a AND ASHWIN K. SESHADRIa,b

a
Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
b
Divecha Centre for Climate Change, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

(Manuscript received 29 December 2021, in final form 5 August 2022)

ABSTRACT: Previous studies have shown that climate sensitivity, defined as the global mean surface temperature change
per unit radiative forcing, is smaller for solar radiative forcing compared to an equivalent CO2 radiative forcing. We investi-
gate the causes for this difference using the NCAR CAM4 model. The contributions to the climate feedback parameter,
which is inversely related to climate sensitivity, are estimated for water vapor, lapse rate, Planck, albedo, and cloud feed-
backs using the radiative kernel technique. The total feedback estimated for CO2 and solar radiative forcing from our
model simulations is 21.23 and 21.45 W m22 K21, respectively. We find that the difference in feedback between the
two cases is primarily due to differences in lapse rate, water vapor, and cloud feedbacks, which together explain 65% of the
difference in total feedback. The rest comes from Planck and albedo feedbacks. The differences in feedbacks arise mainly
from differences in the horizontal (meridional) structure of forcing and the consequent warming. Our study provides
important insights into the effects of the meridional structure of forcing on climate feedback, which is important for evalu-
ating global climate change from different forcing agents.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: An increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration or an increase in incoming solar ra-
diation leads to a rise in the radiative budget and consequent climate warming, which is amplified by the presence of
multiple climate feedbacks. These feedbacks, from changes in surface albedo, combined effect of water vapor and the
vertical lapse rate of temperature, and changes in clouds, differ between solar and CO2 forcing. Using radiative kernels,
this study quantifies these individual feedbacks for an equivalent radiative change caused by an increase in CO2 or in-
coming solar radiation, showing how the differences arise from differences in the meridional patterns of warming. In
agreement with prior studies, these differences can explain the smaller efficacy of solar forcing compared to CO2
forcing.

KEYWORDS: Climate change; Climate sensitivity; Radiative fluxes; Radiative forcing; Climate models;
General circulation models

1. Introduction
An understanding of the climate response to different radi-
ative forcing agents is fundamental for climate change studies.
Accurate projections of the effects of mitigation of green-
house gases as well as solar radiation modification to offset
global warming depend on improved estimation of climate
feedbacks in response to CO2 increase as well as solar irradi-
ance reductions. To quantify the climate response to pertur-
bations in various radiative forcing agents, the concept of
climate sensitivity has been introduced (Cess et al. 1990; Bony
et al. 2006; Hansen et al. 1997). The climate sensitivity is de-
fined as the ratio between global mean surface temperature
change and the radiative forcing (Shine 2000), and its esti-
mates have been found to depend on the radiative forcing
agent (Hansen et al. 1997; Joshi et al. 2003; Shine et al. 2003;
Hansen et al. 2005; Ban-Weiss et al. 2012; Shindell 2014;
Supplemental information related to this paper is available
at the Journals Online website: https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-21-
0980.s1.
Corresponding author: Harpreet Kaur, harpreetkaur@iisc.ac.in
Shindell et al. 2015; Modak et al. 2016, 2018; Modak and Bala
2019).
Several previous studies have shown that climate is more
sensitive to CO2 radiative forcing than solar radiative forcing
(Forster et al. 2000; Hansen et al. 2005; Lambert and Faull
2007; Bala et al. 2010; Schmidt et al. 2012; Modak et al. 2016;
Ceppi and Gregory 2019). This implies that the same increase
of radiative flux at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) due to
CO2 forcing would result in larger global mean surface warm-
ing compared to solar forcing. Additionally, the magnitude of
the difference between the climate sensitivities for two forcing
agents also depends on the definition of radiative forcing
(Modak et al. 2018; Richardson et al. 2019). Different defini-
tions of radiative forcing have emerged over the years. These
include instantaneous radiative forcing, stratosphere-adjusted
radiative forcing, effective radiative forcing, and regressed
radiative forcing (Gregory et al. 2004; Hansen et al. 2005;
Ban-Weiss et al. 2012; Forster et al. 2016; Modak et al. 2018).
The instantaneous radiative forcing refers to the instanta-
neous change in radiative flux at the tropopause immediately
after the forcing agent is introduced into the climate system,
with the state of the entire climate system held fixed (Hansen
et al. 2005). Once radiative forcing is imposed, the strato-
sphere adjusts rapidly and attains equilibrium to the altered

DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-21-0980.1
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776 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
flux within a few months. Following this, the radiative flux
change at TOA and tropopause become equal. The change in
radiative flux at the tropopause once the stratosphere has
adjusted, while the state of the troposphere is unchanged, is
called the stratospheric-adjusted forcing (Hansen et al. 2005).
The instantaneous radiative forcing, as well as strato-
spheric-adjusted radiative forcing, exclude the effects of tro-
pospheric and land surface changes, considering them to be
included in the climate response. However, subsequent stud-
ies (Andrews and Forster 2008; Gregory and Webb 2008;
Dong et al. 2009; Doutriaux-Boucher et al. 2009) have shown
that there are relatively rapid land surface and tropospheric
adjustments, including cloud changes, that have effects on
time scales considerably shorter than a month. Thus, another
definition of radiative forcing was introduced to estimate the
radiative forcing as the change in radiative fluxes at the top of
the atmosphere after the stratosphere, land surface, and tro-
posphere have adjusted (Myhre et al. 2013; Boucher et al.
2013; Sherwood et al. 2015; Forster et al. 2016; Ramaswamy
et al. 2019). Radiative forcing estimated in this manner is
called the “effective radiative forcing” (ERF) and is found to
be a better predictor of global mean surface temperature
change (Shine et al. 2003; Hansen et al. 2005; Ban-Weiss et al.
2012; Myhre et al. 2013; Forster et al. 2016; Richardson et al.
2019). ERF is formally defined as “the change in the net TOA
downward radiative flux after allowing for atmospheric tem-
peratures, water vapor and clouds to adjust, but with surface
temperature or a portion of surface conditions unchanged”
(Myhre et al. 2013). The ERF definition of radiative forcing
incorporates the effects of rapid adjustments that do not scale
with the global mean surface temperature change, allowing
one to exclude fast adjustments from the total climate re-
sponse. Since it is difficult to prescribe the land surface tem-
perature in complex climate model simulations, some studies
also allow adjustments to the land temperature change while
calculating ERF which removes the radiative effects of land
warming on climate feedback (Richardson et al. 2019; Andrews
et al. 2021). The other part of the climate response that scales
with the global mean surface temperature change is called
slow response. In the ERF framework, the slow response per
unit global mean surface temperature change is called the
feedback, and the climate feedback parameter is estimated as
the sensitivity of outgoing radiative flux at TOA to unit sur-
face temperature change. As TOA radiative response should
be equal to ERF at equilibrium, the climate sensitivity for any
forcing agent is the (negative) inverse of the climate feedback
parameter.
The climate feedback parameter can be decomposed as the
sum of feedback parameters describing individual climate
feedbacks. The value of individual climate feedbacks and,
thus, the climate sensitivity differs between climate forcing
agents. In this paper, we quantify and compare the individual
climate feedbacks (albedo, Planck, lapse rate, water vapor,
and cloud) for solar and CO2 radiative forcing. We estimate
individual feedback parameters using the radiative kernels ap-
proach (Shell et al. 2008; Soden et al. 2008; Jonko et al. 2012;
Sanderson and Shell 2012; Yue et al. 2016; Liu et al. 2018),
which assumes linearity between the changes in each variable
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VOLUME 36
and the corresponding radiative flux change at the TOA
(Shell et al. 2008; Soden et al. 2008). In the case of cloud feed-
backs, there are significant nonlinearities primarily arising
from the overlaps between clouds at different levels (Song
et al. 2014), due to which the radiative kernel technique does
not give accurate results (Shell et al. 2008; Soden et al. 2008).
Therefore, we estimate cloud feedbacks by calculating the ad-
justed change in cloud radiative forcing (Soden et al. 2008).
This involves estimating the change in cloud radiative forcing
between perturbed and control simulations, which are subse-
quently adjusted using radiative kernels to correct for the
masking effect of clouds on the other feedbacks.
Previous studies point to fast tropospheric adjustments as
well as convective and low cloud feedbacks as the primary
causes of the difference between the climate sensitivity for so-
lar and CO2 radiative forcing (Forster et al. 2000; Bony and
Dufresne 2005; Lambert and Faull 2007; Andrews et al. 2009;
Bala et al. 2010; Cao et al. 2012; Modak et al. 2016; Zelinka
et al. 2020). In this paper, we estimate ERF using Hansen’s
prescribed-SST method (Hansen et al. 2005) and exclude the
fast adjustments in our estimation of feedback parameters so
that the differences in climate feedback parameters reported
in this paper reflect differences in the slow response.
Specifically, we estimate the feedback parameter lX associ-
ated with change DX in variable X, by dividing the corre-
sponding radiative flux change by the slow response in global
mean surface temperature. The slow response in global mean
surface temperature is calculated as the difference between
global mean surface warming from the slab ocean simulations
and the land surface warming from the prescribed-SST ex-
periments. Correspondingly, climate sensitivity is evaluated as
the slow response in global mean surface warming, in re-
sponse to a unit ERF. The calculations performed thus allow
us to render estimates of individual feedback contributions af-
ter excluding the effects of fast tropospheric and land surface
adjustments.
2. Model and experiments
To estimate radiative forcing and study the climate re-
sponse to solar and CO2 radiative forcing, we use the NCAR
CESM1.0.4 model in two configurations: 1) the prescribed sea
surface temperature (SST) configuration, where the atmo-
spheric component of the CESM, the Community Atmo-
sphere Model version 4 (CAM4) (Neale et al. 2010) is driven
by prescribed SST for estimation of the effective radiative
forcing, and 2) the slab ocean model (SOM) configuration,
where CAM4 is coupled with the slab ocean model for analy-
sis of the climate response to the two forcings. The simula-
tions are performed at a horizontal resolution of 1.98 3 2.58
(latitude 3 longitude), with 18 levels in the troposphere and
8 levels in the stratosphere. In both configurations, CAM4
is coupled to the land model, the Community Land Model
version 4 (CLM4) (Oleson et al. 2010).
We perform a set of three experiments: 1) the control simula-
tion (Ctrl) with preindustrial CO2 concentration of 284.7 ppm
and solar constant of 1361 W m22, 2) the “2XCO2” simulation
where atmospheric CO2 concentration is doubled to 569.4 ppm,
1 FEBRUARY 2023 KAUR ET AL. 777

TABLE 1. Effective radiative forcing (ERF), slow global mean surface temperature change (DTS), albedo (la), Planck (lPlanck),
lapse rate (lLapse), water vapor (lWV), the shortwave (lCldsw) and longwave (lCldlw) cloud feedback parameters, and the sum of all
feedback parameters, as well as the total feedback parameter (l*) estimated from the model. The ERF is estimated from the
prescribed-SST simulations. The slow global mean surface temperature change is estimated as the difference between the total global
mean surface temperature change (estimated from slab ocean simulations) and the fast global mean surface temperature change
(estimated from the prescribed-SST simulation). Global-mean values of individual feedback parameters (W m22 K21) are calculated
using the radiative kernel technique (Shell et al. 2008). Cloud feedback is calculated using the adjusted change in cloud radiative
forcing (Soden et al. 2008). The uncertainties in the estimates are represented by the standard deviation of the annual mean,
estimated from a 20-yr time series for ERF, and 50 years for temperature change and the feedback parameters.

2XCO2 Solar Solar 2 2XCO2

22
ERF (W m ) 3.59 6 0.05 4.08 6 0.07 0.49 6 0.04
DTS (K) 2.93 6 0.013 2.82 6 0.007 20.11 6 0.016
la (W m22 K21) 0.32 6 0.019 0.28 6 0.019 20.04 6 0.02
lPlanck (W m22 K21) 22.95 6 0.01 22.99 6 0.01 20.04 6 0.01
lLapse (W m22 K21) 20.14 6 0.004 20.29 6 0.003 20.15 6 0.005
lWV (W m22 K21) 1.33 6 0.004 1.42 6 0.003 0.09 6 0.008
lCldsw (W m22 K21) 0.07 6 0.009 0 6 0.006 20.07 6 0.008
lCldlw (W m22 K21) 0.14 6 0.003 0.12 6 0.002 20.02 6 0.003
Sum (W m22 K21) 21.23 6 0.01 21.46 6 0.01 20.23 6 0.018
l* (W m22 K21) 21.23 6 0.006 21.45 6 0.008 20.22 6 0.005

and solar constant maintained at 1361 W m22 and 3) the “Solar”
simulation where CO2 concentration is prescribed at the prein-
dustrial level of 284.7 ppm and solar constant increased by 2%
(27.22 W m22). Increasing the solar constant by 2% yields a radi-
ative forcing value close to the radiative forcing (Table 1) in the
2XCO2 simulation. Both the forcing experiments, 2XCO2 and
Solar, are performed in both prescribed-SST and SOM configu-
rations. The prescribed-SST simulations last for 40 years, and the
last 20 years are used for estimating the radiative forcing. The
SOM simulations last for 100 years, and the last 50 years of simu-
lation are used to estimate the equilibrium climate response.
3. Methodology
The global mean temperature response to radiative forcing
is measured by the climate feedback parameter l. The feed-
back parameter l is defined as the change in radiative flux at
the top of the atmosphere caused by an increase in global
mean surface temperature of 1 K (Collins at al. 2013). Once
this feedback parameter is known, it can be used to estimate
the climate sensitivity, which is defined as the global warming
per unit radiative forcing. The radiative forcing is related to
the climate feedback parameter l as
and cloud feedbacks (Shell et al. 2008; Soden et al. 2008;
Pendergrass et al. 2018a):
l 5 la 1 lP 1 lLR 1 lWV 1 lC 1 Residual:
Here, la is albedo feedback, lP is Planck feedback, lLR is
lapse rate feedback, lWV is water vapor feedback, and lC is
cloud feedback.
To identify the sources of differences in climate sensitivity
for solar and CO2 radiative forcing, we compute the individ-
ual feedback parameters for each of these forcings. The radia-
tive kernel approach (Shell et al. 2008; Soden et al. 2008;
Pendergrass et al. 2018a) is used for the estimation of all non-
cloud feedbacks. The kernel approach makes a linear approxi-
mation for the climate feedbacks and decomposes the
feedback parameter corresponding to variable X
DRX
lX 5
DTS
into two factors, the radiative kernel and the climate re-
sponse, as


DX
lX 5 KX ,
DTS

F 5 2lDTS , where radiative kernel KX 5 DRX/DX represents the change

where F is the effective radiative forcing and DTS is the slow
change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium.
The changes in TOA radiative flux and the global mean sur-
face temperature between the corresponding forcing experi-
ment and preindustrial control climate are calculated from
prescribed-SST and slab ocean model simulations, respec-
tively, to estimate climate sensitivity and thus, the climate
feedback parameters. Assuming that the different feedbacks
are additive, the climate feedback parameter l is approxi-
mated as the sum of albedo, Planck, lapse rate, water vapor,
in net incoming TOA radiative flux for a unit standard
change in a variable X (variable X can be albedo, tempera-
ture, lapse rate, water vapor, or clouds). Since the estima-
tion of the kernels is computationally expensive and these
kernels are similar for all climate models (Soden et al. 2008),
we use precalculated radiative kernels that have been made
publicly available (Shell et al. 2008; Pendergrass et al. 2018b).
The kernels used in our study are based on the NCAR Com-
munity Atmospheric Model (CAM3) with a horizontal reso-
lution of 2.88 latitude and 2.88 longitude with 17 vertical
layers (Shell et al. 2008).

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778 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
For calculating the feedback parameters, we use the
monthly average of the slow response in all variables involved
in climate feedback processes (albedo, Planck, lapse rate, and
water vapor). The slow response for a climate variable is then
normalized by the slow response in global mean surface tem-
perature change (the difference between total and fast surface
temperature response), for each grid point and vertical level
for all 12 months of the year. Multiplying this climate re-
sponse by the radiative kernel for the corresponding grid
point and vertical level, summing across levels and averaging
in the horizontal, we obtain the month-wise contribution to
the feedback, which is then averaged across months to obtain
the annually averaged feedback.
As the kernel method of estimating feedbacks is based on
assuming linearity between the perturbation and the resulting
change in TOA radiative flux, which does not hold for clouds,
we cannot use the kernel technique directly for cloud feed-
backs. Instead, the cloud feedback is estimated as the differ-
ence of cloud radiative forcing (CRF) (Ramanathan et al.
1989) between the experiment and the Ctrl run, which we de-
note as dCRF. CRF is estimated by subtracting the TOA radi-
ative flux in clear-sky conditions (without clouds) from the
corresponding TOA radiative flux under all-sky conditions
(including clouds). The cloud feedback dCRF estimated by
this method differs from the generally more accurate calcula-
tions of the cloud feedbacks that result from the partial radia-
tive perturbation method (Wetherald and Manabe 1988;
Zhang et al. 1994; Colman 2003; Soden et al. 2004). This dis-
crepancy in results comes from the masking of the clear-sky
response of noncloud feedbacks when one subtracts the clear-
sky forcing to obtain the dCRF (Zhang et al. 1994; Colman
2003; Soden et al. 2004). By masking the surface (Soden et al.
2008; Shell et al. 2008), for instance, clouds diminish the effects
of the other kernels, including temperature, albedo, and water
vapor on the clear-sky fluxes. The partial radiative perturba-
tion method seeks to isolate the effects of cloud changes on ra-
diative forcing, while keeping the other variables fixed at their
values in the unperturbed climate. In contrast, the dCRF is cal-
culated with all variables changing between the experiment
and the control run. This disparity is adjusted by adding a cor-
rection term to the value of dCRF, giving rise to an adjusted
change in cloud radiative forcing (Soden et al. 2008).
lC 5 dCRF 1 (KT0 2 KT )dT 1 (KW
0
2 KW )dW
1 (Ka0 2 Ka )da 1 (F 0 2 F),
dCRF 5 dCRFExp 2 dCRFCtrl ,
where CRFExp is the cloud radiative forcing for the perturba-
tion experiment and CRFCtrl is cloud radiative forcing for the
control simulation (Ctrl), (F 0 2 F) is the difference between
clear-sky and cloudy sky radiative forcing, and (KX0 2 KX ) is
the difference between clear-sky and all-sky radiative kernels
of variable X (T is temperature, W is water vapor, and a is
surface albedo).
The uncertainties in estimates of radiative forcing and climate
feedbacks, as well as the slow change in surface temperature,
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VOLUME 36
are characterized by their standard deviations, estimated from
corresponding time series of 50 annual means for each of these
variables. The time series of annual means for slow change for
each variable is evaluated as the difference between the time se-
ries of the total response and the average of the fast response
calculated from the last 20 years of the prescribed-SST
simulations.
4. Results
Table 1 shows the effective radiative forcing, slow global
mean surface temperature change, individual feedback pa-
rameters, and their sum, as well as the net climate feedback
parameter for solar and CO2 forcings. The total or net climate
feedback factor l* is estimated from model simulations as the
ratio of radiative flux change from the prescribed-SST experi-
ments and the slow global mean surface temperature change
(change in slab ocean experiments minus the change in
prescribed-SST experiments). The individual feedbacks are cal-
culated using the radiative kernel approach as discussed in the
previous section, with modifications for cloud feedbacks. Net
feedback factors are negative in both 2XCO2 and solar forcing
cases, and the feedback factor for solar forcing is larger in
magnitude (21.45 W m22 K21) compared to CO2 forcing
(21.23 W m22 K21). The net feedback factors are closely
approximated by the sum of individual feedback factors:
21.46 W m22 K21 for solar forcing and 21.23 W m22 K21 for
CO2 radiative forcing.
Individual feedbacks have the same signs for the two forc-
ings (Table 1). Albedo, water vapor, and longwave cloud
feedbacks are positive in both cases, while Planck and lapse
rate feedbacks are negative. Much of the difference in the
sum of feedbacks (20.23 W m22 K21) is explained by a few
individual feedbacks: with 65% of this explained by the lapse
rate, water vapor, and cloud feedbacks. The water vapor and
lapse rate feedback are closely related and tend to compen-
sate each other (Zhang et al. 1994; Cess 1975; Soden and
Held 2006; Held and Shell 2012). While solar forcing causes a
stronger negative lapse rate feedback, it also leads to a slightly
more positive water vapor feedback. As a result, the sum of
lapse rate and water vapor feedbacks for the two forcing
agents have only a small difference, with a value that is more
negative by 0.06 W m22 K21 for solar radiative forcing. Both
albedo feedback and Planck feedback, which have opposite
signs, are respectively less positive and more negative for so-
lar forcing, by 0.04 W m22 K21. The standard deviation for
differences in many individual feedbacks between the Solar
and 2XCO2 cases is smaller than the standard deviation for
the individual feedbacks (Table 1). This is because the indi-
vidual feedbacks are correlated with each other which results
in the standard deviation value for the difference to be less
than the sum of individual standard deviation.
The solar radiative forcing decreases rapidly toward the
poles (Fig. 1). In comparison, the spatial pattern of CO2 radia-
tive forcing is more uniform across latitudes (Hansen et al.
1997). As a result, high-latitude warming is more pronounced
in the CO2 forcing case as compared to solar forcing (Fig. 2).
In contrast, tropical warming is larger for solar forcing for
1 FEBRUARY 2023 KAUR ET AL.
FIG. 1. Zonal mean distributions of effective radiative forcing
(normalized by slow change in global mean surface temperature)
in the (a) 2XCO2 (black) and (b) Solar (red) simulations relative
to the Ctrl simulation and the difference (dotted black) estimated
from the prescribed-SST simulations. The shaded green region rep-
resents the positive change, and the shaded blue region represents
the negative change in the difference value of the zonally averaged
solar and CO2 radiative forcing. All the results are annual mean
values averaged over years 21–40 out of the 40-yr simulations.
similar values of global mean radiative forcing (Fig. 2). These
differences in the warming patterns further give rise to the dif-
ferences in individual climate feedbacks.
a. Surface albedo feedback
The surface albedo feedback contributes 17% to the global
mean difference in the sum of feedbacks (Table 1). The differ-
ence in surface albedo feedback between the Solar and 2XCO2
cases is related to the difference in the latitudinal distribution
of radiative forcing and surface warming (Figs. 1 and 2). As
discussed above, high-latitude warming is larger in the CO2
forcing compared to solar forcing (Fig. 2). In contrast, tropical
warming is larger for solar forcing compared to CO2 forcing
for similar values of global mean radiative forcings. These dif-
ferences translate to differences in the albedo response to
radiative forcing, as shown in Fig. 3. Much of the albedo feed-
back results from albedo changes caused by melting of sea ice
and snow in high latitudes (Hall 2004). Since CO2 forcing
leads to larger warming in these latitudes, the albedo feed-
back is larger in the 2XCO2 case (Fig. 3). Figure 3 shows the
spatial patterns of differences in albedo change per unit slow
response in global mean surface temperature change and cor-
responding differences in the albedo feedback parameter be-
tween the two forcings (Solar minus 2XCO2). Clearly, these
differences are concentrated in higher latitudes, where the
surface albedo is sensitive to differences in warming.
b. Planck feedback
The atmospheric temperature feedback is decomposed into
two parts: 1) Planck feedback and 2) lapse rate feedback. The
part of temperature feedback that is attributed to the verti-
cally uniform component of tropospheric warming is the
“Planck” feedback. The Planck feedback depends on spatial
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779
FIG. 2. Model-simulated spatial patterns of changes in surface
temperature per unit global mean surface temperature change in
(a) 2XCO2 and (b) Solar simulations, and (c) the difference be-
tween the two cases (Solar minus 2XCO2). The results shown are
the slow surface temperature response estimated as the total re-
sponse minus the fast adjustment. The total response is calculated
as the annual mean values over the last 50 years of the 100-yr
CAM4 slab ocean simulations and the fast adjustment is esti-
mated as annual mean values over the last 20 years of the 40-yr
CAM4 prescribed-SST simulations. The stippling in the difference
plot in (c) represents statistically significant differences, at the
95% confidence level, estimated using Student’s t test based on
the corresponding 50-yr annual mean samples.
patterns of surface warming. As discussed in section 4a,
low-latitude warming is larger for solar forcing compared to
CO2 forcing, whereas CO2 forcing leads to larger warming
in the high latitudes (Fig. 2). The larger warming in the
tropics for solar forcing causes a larger increase in outgoing
longwave radiation compared to CO2 radiative forcing. In
contrast, the increase in outgoing longwave radiation and,
thereby, the magnitude of Planck feedback in the high lati-
tudes is larger for CO2 forcing (Fig. 4). Since the magnitude
of the Planck feedback (;4sT3) increases with the tempera-
ture of the region, and given the much larger area of the low
latitudes where the Planck feedback is stronger for solar
forcing (Fig. 4), the overall contribution from the tropics is
much larger than from polar regions. This results in the
magnitude of Planck response being larger and the resulting
feedback being more negative in the case of solar forcing, as
shown in Table 1.
c. Lapse rate feedback
The lapse rate feedback is a measure of TOA radiative flux
change in response to the departure of tropospheric warming
from a vertically uniform profile and is related to the change
in tropospheric lapse rate (Soden et al. 2008). The lapse rate
changes in the perturbed climate relative to the Ctrl climate
are different between the two forcings and this causes differ-
ing lapse rate feedbacks (Table 1). In prior studies, the
780 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 36

FIG. 3. Model-simulated differences in the spatial patterns of (a) albedo response and (b) albedo feedbacks for solar
and CO2 radiative forcing. The albedo feedback is calculated as a product of two factors: the slow response in albedo
per unit global mean slow surface temperature change and the CAM3 (Shell et al. 2008) radiative kernels for the sur-
face albedo feedback. Slow response for each variable is evaluated here as the difference between total response and
the fast adjustment. The total response is calculated as the variable annual mean values over the last 50 years of the
100-yr CAM4 slab ocean simulations and the fast adjustment is estimated as variable annual mean values over the last
20 years of the 40-yr CAM4 prescribed-SST simulations. The stippling in difference plots represents statistically signif-
icant differences, at the 95% confidence level, estimated using Student’s t test based on corresponding 50-yr annual
mean samples.

difference between the lapse rate feedback for the two forcings
has been attributed to different background climate states es-
tablished after fast adjustments (Modak et al. 2016), as well as
the different SST spatial patterns (Cronin and Jansen 2016;
Rugenstein et al. 2016; Andrews and Webb 2018; Ceppi and
Gregory 2019). As we calculate the feedback parameters using
only the slow response in this paper, the differences due to fast
adjustments do not contribute to the differences in individual
feedback parameters.
Several previous studies have shown that the difference
in the vertical profiles of slow temperature change (Fig. S1b
in the online supplemental material) is due to the SST pattern
effect (Armour et al. 2013; Andrews et al. 2015; Rugenstein
et al. 2016; Ceppi and Gregory 2017; Zhou et al. 2017; Andrews
and Webb 2018; Ceppi and Gregory 2019). The SST pattern
effect refers to dependence of the global radiative response on
time-varying spatial patterns of warming (Stevens et al. 2016;
Armour 2017; Proistosescu and Huybers 2017; Andrews and
Webb 2018; Marvel et al. 2018; Dong et al. 2019; Gregory et al.
2020; Rugenstein et al. 2020). In the tropics, the troposphere is
close to radiative–convective equilibrium (Sobel et al. 2001).
The vertical temperature structure is approximately determined
by the moist adiabatic lapse rate (Manabe and Stouffer 1980;
Santer et al. 2005), which decreases with increasing surface tem-
perature and relative humidity. Since solar forcing leads to
larger surface warming in the tropics, the lapse rate becomes
correspondingly smaller, resulting in more negative lapse rate
feedback compared to the CO2 case. In contrast, in the polar re-
gions, the air is cold and stable to convection, and warming is
mostly confined to the lower levels of the atmosphere (Manabe
and Wetherald 1975; Screen et al. 2012). As a result, the lapse
rate feedback in these latitudes is positive (Ramanathan 1977;
Schlesinger and Mitchell 1987; Colman et al. 2001; Crook et al.
2011; Atwood et al. 2016; Feldl et al. 2017). This effect is larger
for CO2 radiative forcing as it causes more warming in these
latitudes. These differences can be seen in Fig. 5. The overall
result of these contrasting lapse rate responses is that the lapse
rate feedback is more negative in low latitudes and less positive
in high latitudes for solar forcing, as compared to CO2 forcing.
This contributes to the more negative lapse rate feedback for
solar forcing (Table 1).
Table S1 and Figs. S2–S4 show an estimate of lapse rate
feedback from the tropical (208S–208N), Arctic (608–908N)
and Antarctic regions (908–608S). The net contribution to the
differences between lapse rate feedbacks for solar and
2XCO2 experiments from the Arctic, tropics, and Antarctic
regions are 20.20, 20.12, and 20.14 W m22 K21 respectively.
It can be seen that both the tropical and polar regions contrib-
ute to the feedback differences in total lapse rate feedback be-
tween 2xCO2 and solar forcing. Moreover, smaller surface
area in the Arctic reduces the contribution of polar region to
total lapse rate feedback, which further enhances the contri-
bution from tropical regions.
d. Water vapor feedback
Atmospheric water vapor is the most important greenhouse
gas (Colman 2003; Schmidt et al. 2010; Reay et al. 2007). An
increase in atmospheric water vapor increases absorption of
both longwave and near-infrared solar radiation and thereby
yields positive feedbacks for both CO2 and solar forcing. As
shown in Table 1, the global water vapor feedback resulting
from solar radiative forcing is larger by 0.09 W m22 K21 com-
pared to CO2 radiative forcing. With constant relative humi-
dity, any change in the logarithm of specific humidity is

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1 FEBRUARY 2023 KAUR ET AL.
FIG. 4. Model-simulated spatial patterns of vertically integrated
Planck feedback in (a) 2XCO2 and (b) Solar simulations and (c)
the difference between the two cases (Solar minus 2XCO2). The
feedback is calculated as a product of two factors: 1) the slow
change in uniform atmospheric temperature per unit global
mean slow surface temperature change and 2) the CAM3 (Shell
et al. 2008) radiative kernels for the Planck feedback. The slow
response of atmospheric temperature is evaluated here as the
difference between the total response and the fast adjustment.
The total response is calculated as the annual mean values over
the last 50 years of the 100-yr CAM4 slab ocean simulations
and the fast adjustment is estimated as annual mean values
over the last 20 years of the 40-yr CAM4 prescribed-SST simu-
lations. The stippling in the difference plot in (c) represents sta-
tistically significant differences, at the 95% confidence level,
estimated using Student’s t test based on the corresponding
50-yr annual mean samples.
approximately proportional to the tropospheric temperature
change, following the Clausius–Clapeyron relation. As can be
seen in Fig. S5, the specific humidity response closely follows
the differences in the temperature response (Figs. S1a–c). So-
lar forcing, with its warmer middle-to-upper troposphere
(Figs. S1a–c), leads to higher specific humidity in the upper
tropospheric levels. This leads to a larger water vapor feed-
back in the case of solar forcing, as shown in Fig. 6c. The wa-
ter vapor feedback, and the difference in the feedback
between the two forcings (Fig. 6c), mainly arises in tropical re-
gions, where the water vapor content is largest, and the atmo-
sphere is closer to saturation (Held and Soden 2000; Soden
et al. 2008; Shell et al. 2008; Jonko et al. 2013). There is a
strong interhemispheric asymmetry for water vapor feedback
for solar and CO2 radiative forcing (Fig. 6). The difference in
water vapor feedback in the NH and in the SH originates
from the interhemispheric asymmetry in the kernel and water
vapor change for the two forcings (Fig. S6). However, the
asymmetry is more prominent in water vapor change with
larger increase in the SH than in the NH, which is likely due
to the asymmetric distribution of land and ocean areas be-
tween the NH and SH.
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781
FIG. 5. The zonal mean lapse rate feedback [W m 22 K 21
(100 hPa) 21 ] in the (a) 2XCO2 and (b) Solar forcings, and (c) the
difference between the two cases (Solar minus 2XCO2). The lapse
rate feedback is calculated as a product of two factors: 1) the de-
parture of slow temperature response from a vertically uniform re-
sponse per unit global mean slow surface temperature change and
2) the CAM3 (Shell et al. 2008) radiative kernels for the lapse rate
feedback. The slow response of atmospheric temperature here is
evaluated as the difference of the total response and the fast ad-
justment. The total response is calculated as the annual mean
values over the last 50 years of the 100-yr CAM4 slab ocean
simulations and the fast adjustment is estimated as annual mean
values over the last 20 years of the 40-yr CAM4 prescribed-SST
simulations. The stippling in the difference plot in (c) represents
statistically significant differences, at the 95% confidence level, es-
timated using Student’s t test based on the corresponding 50-yr an-
nual mean samples.
e. Cloud feedback
Cloud feedback generally involves the net result of various
effects of changing clouds on the shortwave and longwave ra-
diative fluxes. The net cloud feedback is positive in both the
Solar and 2XCO2 cases (Table 1). We can decompose the to-
tal cloud feedback into longwave and shortwave components.
Table 1 shows that the global shortwave cloud feedback is
positive for CO2 forcing and almost zero for the Solar case.
Longwave cloud feedback is positive for the two forcings and
has a comparable magnitude in both cases. Thus, the differ-
ence in net cloud feedback between the two cases is primarily
due to differing shortwave cloud feedbacks.
The sign and magnitude of cloud feedback would depend
on the change in altitude of clouds and change in fraction and
782 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
FIG. 6. The zonal mean water vapor feedback [W m22 K21
(100 hPa)21] in the (a) 2XCO2 and (b) Solar simulations, and
(c) the difference between the two (Solar minus 2XCO2). The
water vapor feedback is calculated as the product of two factors:
slow water vapor response per unit global mean slow surface tem-
perature change and the CAM3 (Shell et al. 2008) radiative kernels
for the lapse rate feedback. The slow response of atmospheric tem-
perature here is evaluated as the difference between total response
and the fast adjustment. The total response is calculated as the an-
nual mean values over the last 50 years of the 100-yr CAM4 slab
ocean simulations and the fast adjustment is estimated from annual
mean values over the last 20 years of the 40-yr CAM4 prescribed-
SST simulations. The stippling in difference plot in (c) represents
statistically significant differences, at the 95% confidence level, esti-
mated using Student’s t test based on the corresponding 50-yr
annual mean samples.
optical depth of clouds. An increase in altitude of high-level
clouds (pressure , 400 mb; 1 mb 5 1 hPa) results in positive
longwave cloud feedback due to the increase in the green-
house effect of clouds (Ceppi and Gregory 2017). In contrast,
increases in cloud fraction and optical depth particularly of
low-level clouds increases the reflection of incoming short-
wave radiation by clouds and hence lead to negative short-
wave cloud feedback (Zelinka et al. 2016; McCoy et al. 2017).
The overall cloud feedback depends on how much of the
change occurs for low versus high clouds. Since low clouds
have a larger shortwave effect of reflecting radiation to space,
the contribution of an increase in low-level clouds is negative
feedback. In contrast, high clouds have a larger greenhouse
effect, and thus an increase in high clouds contributes posi-
tively to cloud feedbacks.
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VOLUME 36
FIG. 7. The zonal mean slow response in cloud fraction (%) per
unit global mean slow surface temperature change in (a) 2XCO2
and (b) Solar simulations, and (c) the difference between the two
(Solar minus 2XCO2). The slow cloud response is estimated as the
difference of the total response and the fast adjustment. The total
response is calculated as the annual mean values over the last
50 years of the 100-yr CAM4 slab ocean simulations and the fast ad-
justment is estimated from annual mean values over the last 20 years
of the 40-yr CAM4 prescribed-SST simulations. The stippling in the
difference plot in (c) represents statistically significant differences, at
the 95% confidence level, estimated using Student’s t test based on
the corresponding 50-yr annual mean samples.
Figures 7a and 8a show that CO2 forcing leads to decrease
in low clouds in the subtropical and midlatitude regions
(308–608) in both hemispheres, decreases in high clouds around
300 mb in the tropical regions, and an increase in the overall
height of high clouds in the upper troposphere (Figs. 7 and 9).
This is consistent with prior work (Zelinka et al. 2012), which
shows that warming leads to deepening of the troposphere,
thereby leading to an increase in the altitude of cloud tops. As
a result, the overall feedback of clouds from CO2 forcing is
positive (Table 1).
In the Solar case, the slow cloud response shows a decrease of
low clouds in the subtropical and midlatitude regions (Figs. 7b
and 8b; see also Fig. S7b) and an increase in the height of high
clouds in the upper troposphere (Figs. 7b and 9). The cloud re-
sponse to radiative forcing strongly depends on SST pattern
change through various dynamic, thermodynamic, and radia-
tive processes. Many studies have shown a strong correlation
between the low-cloud cover and lower tropospheric stability
(LTS) (Klein and Hartmann 1993; Miller 1997; Larson et al.
1999; Williams et al. 2008; Qu et al. 2015a; Zhou et al. 2016;
1 FEBRUARY 2023 KAUR ET AL. 783

FIG. 8. Model-simulated spatial patterns of vertically integrated slow change in cloud fraction per unit global mean
slow surface temperature change, showing low cloud changes in the (a) 2XCO2 and (b) Solar simulations and high
cloud changes in the (c) 2XCO2 and (d) Solar simulations, as well as the difference between them (Solar minus
2XCO2) for (e) low clouds and (f) high clouds. The slow cloud response is estimated as the difference of the total re-
sponse and the fast adjustment. The total response is calculated as the annual mean values over the last
50 years of the 100-yr CAM4 slab ocean simulations and the fast adjustment is estimated from annual mean values
over the last 20 years of the 40-yr CAM4 prescribed-SST simulations. The stippling in the difference plots in (e) and
(f) represents statistically significant differences, at the 95% confidence level, estimated using Student’s t test based on
the corresponding 50-yr annual mean samples.

Ceppi and Gregory 2017; Zhou et al. 2017; Andrews and
Webb 2018). The LTS is estimated as the difference in poten-
tial temperature at 700 hPa and near the surface and is a
measure of the inversion strength of the planetary boundary
layer. The LTS increases in a warm climate leading to an in-
crease in low cloud cover, which results in negative short-
wave cloud feedback (Figs. S7 and S9) (Miller 1997; Qu et al.
2015b). We do find some evidence for this in the subtropical
region in our simulations (Fig. S8). However, there are sev-
eral other factors, such as changes in relative humidity, verti-
cal velocity, and near-surface wind speed, which could also
have competing effects on cloud fraction change and hence,
cloud feedbacks (Fig. S7) (Myers et al. 2021). A detailed in-
vestigation of the effects of these processes is beyond the
scope of our study.
The decrease in low clouds is smaller in the Solar case than
in the 2XCO2 case (Figs. 7c and 8e), but the decrease in
high clouds around 300 mb is larger (Figs. 7c, 9c), implying
that both longwave and shortwave cloud feedbacks would
be smaller (i.e., less positive) for solar radiative forcing
than CO2 radiative forcing. These changes in cloud fraction
are related to differential warming of the troposphere (Fig. S1):
warming is larger in the upper troposphere in the Solar case,
leading to a larger decrease in high clouds around 300 mb
(Fig. 7c). In the 2XCO2 case, in contrast, warming is larger
in the lower troposphere (Fig. S1), causing a larger decline
in low clouds (Figs. 7c and 9c). The spatial and meridional
patterns of longwave, shortwave, and total cloud feedbacks
(Figs. S9 and S10 and Fig. 10) in the 2XCO2 experiment are
similar to those of previous studies (Gettelman et al. 2012).

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784 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE VOLUME 36

FIG. 9. Vertical profile of globally averaged change in cloud fraction in the 2XCO2 and Solar simulations: (a) the fast adjustments as es-
timated from the prescribed-SST simulations, (b) the slow response calculated as the total change minus fast adjustments, and (c) the total
cloud change from slab ocean simulations. Results are computed from annual mean values over the last 20 (50) years of the 40-yr (100-yr)
prescribed-SST (slab ocean) simulations for the estimation of fast adjustments (total change).

The difference in net cloud feedback (Table 1) between the
2XCO2 and Solar cases arises mainly from the differing short-
wave cloud feedbacks (Fig. 10). The shortwave cloud feed-
back (Fig. 10b; see also Figs. S9a,b) in the 2XCO2 and Solar
cases is consistent with the low cloud and LTS changes dis-
cussed above (Figs. 7 and 8a,b; see also Figs. S7b and S8),
with low cloud changes correlating to changes in the LTS giv-
ing rise to positive feedback in the subtropical and midlatitude
regions in both hemispheres, and a stronger zonal mean signa-
ture in the Southern Hemisphere owing to reduction in low
clouds. The feedback is slightly less positive in the Solar case
(Fig. 10b; see also Fig. S9e) in these regions, which is consistent
with a slightly smaller reduction of low clouds (Figs. 7c and 8e;
see also Fig. S7b). The longwave cloud feedback (Figs. S9c,d)
has large spatial variability, especially in tropical regions. How-
ever, averaged around the globe, the magnitudes of long-
wave cloud feedback are similar in the two cases (Table 1).
Thus, we conclude that a slightly smaller reduction of low
clouds in the subtropical and midlatitude regions in the case
of Solar forcing, compared to the 2XCO2 case, leads to a
slightly less positive overall (shortwave 1 longwave) cloud
feedback in the Solar case compared to the 2XCO2 case
(0.12 vs 0.21 W m22 K21).

5. Discussion and conclusions

FIG. 10. Distributions of zonal mean (a) longwave cloud feed-
back, (b) shortwave cloud feedback, and (c) total cloud feedback
(longwave 1 shortwave) in the 2xCO2 and Solar simulations. The
difference between the two cases in shown by the dotted lines. The
cloud feedback is calculated by adjusting the change in cloud radia-
tive forcing, following the method described in Soden et al. (2008),
as discussed in the main text.
In this paper, we have examined the climate system re-
sponse to solar and CO2 radiative forcings using a climate
modeling framework. We have identified how the climate sen-
sitivity to solar radiative forcing is smaller than to CO2 radia-
tive forcing because of the differences in climate feedbacks,
which is related to the difference in the latitudinal pattern of
warming between the two cases (Fig. 2). We have used the ra-
diative kernel technique (Shell et al. 2008; Soden et al. 2008;
Pendergrass et al. 2018a), finding that differences between the
total climate feedback parameter for solar and CO2 radiative
forcings mainly arise from lapse rate, water vapor, and cloud
feedbacks. We further characterize how the differing meridio-
nal patterns of surface warming for solar and CO2 radiative
forcing lead to differences between albedo, Planck, lapse rate,
water vapor, and cloud feedbacks and provide process-based
accounts of these differences for each feedback. Our analy-
sis shows that the smaller climate sensitivity of solar

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1 FEBRUARY 2023 KAUR ET AL.
radiative forcing results from the differences in the meridi-
onal profiles of warming. For solar forcing, larger warming
in tropical latitudes compared to CO2 forcing leads to less
positive albedo feedback, more negative Planck feedback,
more negative lapse rate feedback, more positive water va-
por feedback, and less positive cloud feedback. The net ef-
fect is that, together, these feedbacks cause a smaller
global mean surface warming in the case of solar forcing
for the same change in effective radiative forcing.
Our study has examined the dependence of the slow re-
sponse on the forcing agent, which has been the subject of re-
cent research. We exclude the fast adjustments in our
calculation of climate feedbacks and applied the effective ra-
diative forcing (ERF) concept to estimate the radiative flux
imbalance and calculate radiative forcing: it is calculated once
the stratosphere, land surface, and troposphere have adjusted.
Our analysis shows that the differences in slow response con-
tribute significantly to the difference in climate sensitivities
between solar and CO2 radiative forcing (Table 1). The fast
adjustment, which does not scale with temperature change,
has been excluded from the climate feedback and climate sen-
sitivity calculations. Instead of the total global mean surface
temperature change, which includes the fast effect of land
warming, we have used the slow global mean surface temper-
ature change as a normalizing factor in climate feedback
calculations.
For calculations of feedback, we have used precalculated
radiative kernels of Shell et al. (2008). The adoption of any
one set of kernels, derived from a single model, for different
forcing experiments might lead to uncertainties of around
10% in the results owing to intermodel uncertainties (Soden
et al. 2008). However, a computationally and practically more
feasible approach than the kernel technique is yet to be devel-
oped. Furthermore, our climate response calculations are esti-
mated from equilibrium simulations using an atmospheric
model coupled to a slab ocean model, which lacks ocean dy-
namics. The warming patterns in full Earth system models
(ESMs) that include a dynamic ocean component would
evolve with time due to the transient heat uptake by the
ocean and internal variability. Furthermore, the slab ocean
model lacks effects of changes in ocean circulation and heat
transport, which can influence the melting of high-latitude
sea ice and thereby affect the albedo feedback (Shell 2013;
Yoshimori et al. 2018). Investigation of the individual feed-
back differences in ESMs that simulate transient climate
change caused by different forcing agents merits future
studies.
Previous studies have indicated that the TOA radiative
flux is quite sensitive to rapid cloud adjustments (Colman
and McAvaney 2011; Zelinka et al. 2013), and uncertainty
in cloud feedbacks is primarily the cause for the large un-
certainty in net feedback (Soden and Held 2006; Dufresne
and Bony 2008; Vial et al. 2013). Nevertheless, it is reassur-
ing that the spatial patterns of slow cloud response and
cloud feedbacks in our 2XCO2 simulations are broadly sim-
ilar to previous studies (Bitz et al. 2012; Gettelman et al.
2012). In this study, we have not investigated the complex
spatial pattern of cloud changes and feedbacks, and a
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785
detailed mechanistic understanding of the spatial pattern of
cloud response to the surface temperature changes merits
future investigations.
Newer versions of CESM are available with different equi-
librium climate sensitivity (3.2 K for CAM4, 4 K for CAM5,
and 5.3 K for CAM6). Differences in equilibrium climate
sensitivities for CAM4, CAM5, and CAM6 arise mainly from
cloud feedbacks and the direct radiative forcing of CO2
(Gettelman et al. 2012, 2019). The water vapor, temperature,
and albedo feedback values have remained fairly constant for
different versions of CAM (Gettelman et al. 2012, 2019). We
believe that the qualitative conclusions of our studies are in-
sensitive to the model version used. Nevertheless, it would be
useful to evaluate the robustness of our results using different
models in future studies. Furthermore, this paper uses the sur-
face temperature over land and ocean, rather than surface
air temperature for our calculations. The latest IPCC report
shows that there is no systematic difference between changes
in global mean surface air temperature and surface tempera-
ture (Gulev et al. 2021). The differences between surface tem-
perature and surface air temperature anomalies are small and
less than 10%.
Our results are based on a single climate model. A multi-
model intercomparison would be required to confirm the
robustness of these results. While quantitative differences be-
tween the climate responses to solar and CO2 forcing are
likely to be model dependent, the qualitative conclusion that
solar forcing has lower efficacy than CO2 forcing arises from
basic physical principles, which we have sought to describe in
this study. There is no experiment in the latest phase of Cou-
pled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6; Eyring et al.
2016) that exactly corresponds to our Solar simulation where
the solar constant is increased by 2%. However, such an
experiment is available under the Precipitation Driver and
Response Model Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP; Myhre
et al. 2017). Solar dimming experiments are also available
under the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project
(GeoMIP6; Kravitz et al. 2015). Although we have not used
these simulations in this study, we recognize the importance
of multimodel intercomparison for testing the robustness of
our results. Future studies should address this important re-
search gap. Further, a systematic and detailed investigation of
the dependence of the individual feedbacks on warming pat-
terns caused by different radiative forcing agents using a mul-
timodel framework is needed.
The present study highlights the role of differences in
slow response for different forcing agents, and it is unlikely
that the differences would be affected by different magni-
tudes of radiative forcing (Table 1). Our study has practical
relevance for assessing the impact of perturbations caused
by different radiative forcing agents on the climate system.
The study also has important implications for the estimation
of the reduction of total solar irradiance in solar radiation mod-
ification or solar geoengineering options that are proposed to
partially or fully offset the global mean warming caused by
CO2 (Bala et al. 2010; Schmidt et al. 2012; Niemeier et al. 2013;
Kravitz et al. 2014; Modak and Bala 2014; Irvine et al. 2016;
786 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
Kravitz et al. 2017; Tilmes et al. 2017; Duan et al. 2018; Nalam
et al. 2018).
Acknowledgments. This work was supported by the National
Supercomputer Mission (reference number DST/NSM/R&D_
HPC Applications/2021/03.09) under the department of sci-
ence and technology (DST), Government of India. We
thank Dr. Karen Shell for making the radiative kernels
freely available. We acknowledge the Supercomputer Educa-
tion and Research Centre (SERC), Indian Institute of Sci-
ence, Bengaluru, for providing the computational resources
to perform CAM4 simulations. The first author gratefully ac-
knowledges the MHRD Fellowship provided by the Indian
Institute of Science. Three reviewers of the manuscript are
acknowledged for their helpful suggestions.
Data availability statement. The radiative kernels used in
our research are publicly available and downloaded from
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/radiative-kernels-
climate-models. The NCL codes and model outputs used for
our calculations are available on request from the corresponding
author.
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