Abstract

The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing longwave flux over the 9.6 mu m ozone band is a fundamental quantity for understanding chemistry-climate coupling. However, observed TOA fluxes are hard to estimate as they exhibit considerable variability in space and time that depends on the distributions of... Show moreThe top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing longwave flux over the 9.6 mu m ozone band is a fundamental quantity for understanding chemistry-climate coupling. However, observed TOA fluxes are hard to estimate as they exhibit considerable variability in space and time that depends on the distributions of clouds, ozone (O-3), water vapor (H2O), air temperature (T-a), and surface temperature (T-s). Benchmarking present-day fluxes and quantifying the relative influence of their drivers is the first step for estimating climate feedbacks from ozone radiative forcing and predicting radiative forcing evolution. Show less