Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?

Author:

Roe Gerard H.1,Baker Marcia B.1

Affiliation:

1. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.

Abstract

Uncertainties in projections of future climate change have not lessened substantially in past decades. Both models and observations yield broad probability distributions for long-term increases in global mean temperature expected from the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, with small but finite probabilities of very large increases. We show that the shape of these probability distributions is an inevitable and general consequence of the nature of the climate system, and we derive a simple analytic form for the shape that fits recent published distributions very well. We show that the breadth of the distribution and, in particular, the probability of large temperature increases are relatively insensitive to decreases in uncertainties associated with the underlying climate processes.

Publisher

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Subject

Multidisciplinary

Reference30 articles.

1. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007

2. Climate sensitivity is a measure of equilibrium climate change. During the adjustment to the new equilibrium time-dependent factors in particular ocean heat uptake are also important.

3. M. R. Allenet al., in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, H. J. Schellnhuber, W. Cramer, N. Nakicenovic, T. Wigley, G. Yohe, Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 281–289.

4. Objective estimation of the probability density function for climate sensitivity

5. An Observationally Based Estimate of the Climate Sensitivity

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3