Far-Infrared Surface Emissivity Impacts on Climate and the Potential for a Positive Feedback

There are few observational constraints on surface emissivity at wavelengths longer than 15 μm, a spectral region commonly referred to as the far-infrared. Nevertheless, where the precipitable water vapor (PWV) is less than 1 mm, which is common at high latitudes and high altitudes, the infrared energy budget is directly impacted by this emissivity. Calculations based on published indices of refraction of ice, water, and common surficial minerals, and observations based on a limited set of spectroscopic measurements, find that non-frozen ocean and desert scenes will exhibit lower far-infrared surface emissivity than frozen scenes by between 0.1 and 0.2.

The representation of surface emissivity in climate models is highly simplified, based on ideal black-body emission, and systematically higher than emissivity of real surfaces. Therefore, we performed sensitivity studies using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and found that Arctic surface temperatures warm by 2 °K and frozen surface extent decreases by 5-10% when the model is subjected to realistic values of far-infrared surface emissivity. This finding may help explain the cold-pole bias, and also suggests the potential for a positive feedback whereby the loss of snow or ice leads to the exposure of surfaces that reduce surface infrared cooling, thus warming the surface further.