ABSTRACT Fundamental puzzles of climate science remain unsolved because of our limited understanding of how clouds, circulation and climate interact. One example is our inability to provide

robust assessments of future global and regional climate changes. However, ongoing advances in our capacity to observe, simulate and conceptualize the climate system now make it possible to

fill gaps in our knowledge. We argue that progress can be accelerated by focusing research on a handful of important scientific questions that have become tractable as a result of recent

advances. We propose four such questions below; they involve understanding the role of cloud feedbacks and convective organization in climate, and the factors that control the position, the

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Article 17 April 2024 EQUILIBRIUM CLIMATE SENSITIVITY ABOVE 5 °C PLAUSIBLE DUE TO STATE-DEPENDENT CLOUD FEEDBACK Article 26 October 2020 MODEL SPREAD IN TROPICAL LOW CLOUD FEEDBACK TIED TO

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systematic errors through a seamless approach to modeling weather and climate. _J. Clim._ 23, 5933–5957 (2010). Article  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper was

developed as part of the Grand Challenge on Clouds, Circulation and Climate Sensitivity of the World Climate Research Programme. The process of identifying a handful of key scientific

questions culminated in a workshop whose participants are gratefully acknowledged: D. Abbot, P. Bauer, M. Biasutti, H. Douville, J-L. Dufresne, A. Del Genio, K. Emanuel, Q. Fu, J.

Hargreaves, S. Harrison, I. Held, C. Hohenegger, B. Hoskins, S. Kang, H. Kawai, S. A. Klein, N. Loeb, T. Mauritsen, B. Mapes, M. Miller, C. Muller, C. Prentice, C. Risi, M. Satoh, C.

Schumacher, B. Wielicki, M. Yoshimori and P. Zuidema. We thank the German Weather Service, PMIP, EUMETSAT and NASA for data. M. Doutriaux-Boucher (EUMETSAT) provided the satellite products

used in Fig. 2a and b. S.B. and B.S. acknowledge support from the LABEX L-IPSL and the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. M.J.W. was supported by the Joint UK DECC/Defra Met

Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101). AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * LMD/IPSL, CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, UMR 8539, 4 Place Jussieu, mail box 99,

75252, Paris, France Sandrine Bony * Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstrasse 53, Hamburg, D-20146, Germany Bjorn Stevens * Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of

Washington, Seattle, 98195-1640, Washington, USA Dargan M. W. Frierson * School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, 3800, Victoria, Australia Christian Jakob * LSCE/IPSL,

CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, UMR 8212, Orme des Merisiers, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91191, France Masa Kageyama * University of Colorado, Boulder, CIRES, 216 UCB, Boulder, 80309, Colorado, USA Robert Pincus *

Physical Sciences Division, NOAA/Earth System Research Lab, Boulder, 80305, Colorado, USA Robert Pincus * Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, UK Theodore G.

Shepherd * Climate Change Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia Steven C. Sherwood * KNMI, Postbus

201, De Bilt, 3730 AE, the Netherlands A. Pier Siebesma * Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, 10027, New York, USA Adam H. Sobel *

Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Chiba, 277-8568, Japan Masahiro Watanabe * Hadley Centre, Met Office, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK Mark J. Webb Authors * Sandrine Bony

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Mark J. Webb View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS S.B. and B.S. led the writing of the paper. All authors contributed to the

development and writing of the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Sandrine Bony. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Geosci_ 8, 261–268 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2398 Download citation * Received: 11 November 2014 * Accepted: 23 February 2015 * Published: 31 March 2015 * Issue Date: April 2015 *

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