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|a Climate sensitivity in the Anthropocene |h [electronic resource]. |
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|a [S.l.] : |b Royal Meteorological Society, |c 2013. |
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|a Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. |
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|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. |
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|a Climate sensitivity in its most basic form is defined as the equilibrium change in
global surface temperature that occurs in response to a climate forcing, or externally
imposed perturbation of the planetary energy balance.Within this general definition,
several specific forms of climate sensitivity exist that differ in terms of the types
of climate feedbacks they include. Based on evidence from Earth’s history, we
suggest here that the relevant form of climate sensitivity in the Anthropocene
(e.g. from which to base future greenhouse gas (GHG) stabilization targets) is the
Earth system sensitivity including fast feedbacks from changes in water vapour,
natural aerosols, clouds and sea ice, slower surface albedo feedbacks from changes
in continental ice sheets and vegetation, and climate–GHG feedbacks from changes
in natural (land and ocean) carbon sinks. Traditionally, only fast feedbacks have
been considered (with the other feedbacks either ignored or treated as forcing),
which has led to estimates of the climate sensitivity for doubled CO2 concentrations
of about 3◦C. The 2×CO2 Earth system sensitivity is higher than this, being
∼4–6◦C if the ice sheet/vegetation albedo feedback is included in addition to the
fast feedbacks, and higher still if climate–GHG feedbacks are also included. The
inclusion of climate–GHG feedbacks due to changes in the natural carbon sinks
has the advantage of more directly linking anthropogenic GHG emissions with the
ensuing global temperature increase, thus providing a truer indication of the climate
sensitivity to human perturbations. The Earth system climate sensitivity is difficult
to quantify due to the lack of palaeo-analogues for the present-day anthropogenic
forcing, and the fact that ice sheet and climate–GHG feedbacks have yet to become
globally significant in the Anthropocene. Furthermore, current models are unable to
adequately simulate the physics of ice sheet decay and certain aspects of the natural
carbon and nitrogen cycles. Obtaining quantitative estimates of the Earth system
sensitivity is therefore a high priority for future work. |
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|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. |
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|a dpSobek |c Sea Level Rise |
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|u http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15050360/00001 |y Click here for full text |
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|a http://dpanther.fiu.edu/sobek/content/FI/15/05/03/60/00001/FI15050360_thm.jpg |
