Compensation between Model Feedbacks and Curtailment of Climate Sensitivity

Compensation between Model Feedbacks and Curtailment of Climate Sensitivity

The spread in climate sensitivity obtained from 12 general circulation model runs used in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates a 95% confidence interval of 2.18–5.58C, but this reflects compensation between model feedbacks. In particular, cloud feedback strength negatively covaries with the albedo feedback as well as with the combined water vapor plus...

The Evolution of Climate Sensitivity and Climate Feedbacks in the Community Atmosphere Model

The major evolution of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) is used to diagnose climate feedbacks, understand how climate feedbacks change with different physical parameterizations, and identify the processes and regions that determine climate sensitivity. In the evolution of CAM from version 4 to version 5, the water vapor, temperature, surface albedo, ...

Time-Varying Climate Sensitivity from Regional Feedbacks

The sensitivity of global climate with respect to forcing is generally described in terms of the global climate feedback—the global radiative response per degree of global annualmean surface temperature change.While the global climate feedback is often assumed to be constant, its value—diagnosed from global climate models—shows substantial time variation under transient warming. Here a reformul...

Simulated Climate Sensitivity , Feedbacks and Mean 1 State

Biosphere feedbacks and climate change

POLICY ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE IS INFORMED BY CLIMATE MODEL projections as described most recently in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The models used are general circulation models (GCMs), which numerically represent the physical climate system in three dimensions, including the hydrological cycle. These are complemented by recently de...