This study quantifies the contributions of various cloud types to the total short-term cloud feedback in satellite observations and evaluates how they are represented in CMIP6 AMIP models over the period 2002 to 2014. The total cloud feedback is positive in the observation, mainly driven by changes in high-cloud altitude, land cloud amount, and extratropical high-cloud optical depth components. The models reproduce the spatial pattern of total cloud feedback but underestimate its magnitude over this period, with discrepancies arising mainly from tropical marine low-cloud, high-cloud altitude, and extratropical high- and low-cloud optical depth feedbacks. This study provides an apple-to-apple comparison and helps reveal compensating errors in modeled cloud feedback components, highlighting the need for improvements in model simulations of the response of high clouds and tropical marine low clouds.

[This work was performed under the auspices of the DOE by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS-852547]