Correction to 'comparisons of satellites liquid water estimates to ECMWF and GMAO analyses, 20th century IPCC AR4 climate simulations, and GCM simulations'

摘要

In the paper "Comparisons of satellites liquid water estimates to ECMWF and GMAO analyses, 20th century IPCC AR4 climate simulations, and GCM simulations" by Li et al. (Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L19710, doi:10.1029/2008GL035427, 2008, hereinafter LET), LET provided an assessment of the representation of the cloud liquid water path (LWP) by general circulation models (GCMs), namely the GCMs that contributed to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 3 (CMIP3) and that were utilized in the IPCC 4th Assessment. Since the publication of LET, discrepancies have been revealed in the interpretation of the request for model output and model documentation. Here we report a revision to the analysis results of LET based on correcting for these discrepancies. The corrected results illustrate smaller root mean square errors than that presented in LET and significantly improve the results of two GISS models and the IPSL model. While the results presented for a few specific models change, the main conclusions of LET remain valid, namely that significant disagreements of LWP are found among the models including both widely varying magnitudes and considerable differences in spatial patterns.