Historical and future learning about climate sensitivity

Urban, Nathan M.; Holden, Philip B.; Edwards, Neil R.; Sriver, Ryan L. and Keller, Klaus (2014). Historical and future learning about climate sensitivity. Geophysical Research Letters, 41(7) pp. 2543–2552.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL059484

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL0...

Abstract

Equilibrium climate sensitivity measures the long-term response of surface temperature to changes in atmospheric CO2. The range of climate sensitivities in the IPCC AR5 Report is unchanged from that published almost 30 years earlier in the Charney Report. We conduct perfect-model experiments using an energy balance model to study the rate at which uncertainties might be reduced by observation of global temperature and ocean heat uptake. We find that a climate sensitivity of 1.5 <°C can be statistically distinguished from 3 °C by 2030; 3 °C from 4.5 °C by 2040; and 4.5 °C from 6 °C by 2065. Learning rates are slowest in the scenarios of greatest concern (high sensitivities), due to a longer ocean response time, which may have bearing on wait-and-see vs. precautionary mitigation policies. Learning rates are optimistic in presuming the availability of whole- ocean heat data, but pessimistic by using simple aggregated metrics and model physics.

Viewing alternatives

Look up in Google Scholar

Download history

Metrics

Public Attention

Altmetrics from Altmetric

Number of Citations

Citations from Dimensions

Item Actions

Export

About

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

Recommendations