| 008 |
|
150514n^^^^^^^^xx^||||^o^^^^^|||^u^eng^d |
| 245 |
00 |
|a Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing |h [electronic resource]. |
| 260 |
|
|a [S.l.] : |b Macmillan Publishers Limited, |c 2014-01-02. |
| 490 |
|
|a Nature Magazine Volume 505. |
| 506 |
|
|a Please contact the owning institution for licensing and permissions. It is the user's responsibility to ensure use does not violate any third party rights. |
| 520 |
3 |
|a Equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the ultimate change in global mean temperature in response to a change in
external forcing. Despite decades of research attempting to narrow uncertainties, equilibrium climate sensitivity
estimates from climate models still span roughly 1.5 to 5 degrees Celsius for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentration, precluding accurate projections of future climate. The spread arises largely from differences in the
feedback from low clouds, for reasons not yet understood. Here we show that differences in the simulated strength of
convective mixing between the lower and middle tropical troposphere explain about half of the variance in climate
sensitivity estimated by 43 climate models. The apparent mechanism is that such mixing dehydrates the low-cloud layer
at a rate that increases as the climate warms, and this rate of increase depends on the initial mixing strength, linking the
mixing to cloud feedback. The mixing inferred from observations appears to be sufficiently strong to imply a climate
sensitivity of more than 3 degrees for a doubling of carbon dioxide. This is significantly higher than the currently
accepted lower bound of 1.5 degrees, thereby constraining model projections towards relatively severe future warming. |
| 533 |
|
|a Electronic reproduction. |c Florida International University, |d 2015. |f (dpSobek) |n Mode of access: World Wide Web. |n System requirements: Internet connectivity; Web browser software. |
| 852 |
|
|a dpSobek |c Sea Level Rise |
| 856 |
40 |
|u http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15050308/00001 |y Click here for full text |
| 992 |
04 |
|a http://dpanther.fiu.edu/sobek/content/FI/15/05/03/08/00001/FI15050308_thm.jpg |
