Multi-annual ocean-atmosphere adjustments to radiative forcing

In radiative forcing and climate feedback frameworks, the initial stratospheric and tropospheric adjustments to a forcing agent can be treated as part of the forcing and not as a feedback, as long as the average global surface temperature response is negligible. Here, a very large initial condition ensemble of the Community Earth System Model is used to analyze how the ocean shapes the fast response to radiative forcing. It is shown that not only the stratosphere and troposphere but also the ocean adjusts. This oceanic adjustment includes meridional ocean heat transport convergence anomalies, which are locally as large as the surface heat flux anomalies, and an increase of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. These oceanic adjustments set the lower boundary condition for the atmospheric response of the first few years, in particular, the shortwave cloud radiative effect. This cloud adjustment causes a nonlinear relationship between global energy imbalance and temperature. It proceeds with a characteristic time scale of a few years in response to the forcing rather than scaling nonlinearly with global mean temperature anomaly. It is proposed that even very short time scales are treated as a fully coupled problem and encourage other modeling groups to investigate whether our description also suits their models’ behavior. A definition of the forcing term (“virtual forcing”) including oceanic adjustment processes is introduced and serves as an interpretive idea for longer time scales

The Green's function model intercomparison project (GFMIP) protocol

The atmospheric Green's function method is a technique for modeling the response of the atmosphere to changes in the spatial field of surface temperature. While early studies applied this method to changes in atmospheric circulation, it has also become an important tool to understand changes in radiative feedbacks due to evolving patterns of warming, a phenomenon called the “pattern effect.” To better study this method, this paper presents a protocol for creating atmospheric Green's functions to serve as the basis for a model intercomparison project, GFMIP. The protocol has been developed using a series of sensitivity tests performed with the HadAM3 atmosphere‐only general circulation model, along with existing and new simulations from other models. Our preliminary results have uncovered nonlinearities in the response of the atmosphere to surface temperature changes, including an asymmetrical response to warming versus cooling patch perturbations, and a change in the dependence of the response on the magnitude and size of the patches. These nonlinearities suggest that the pattern effect may depend on the heterogeneity of warming as well as its location. These experiments have also revealed tradeoffs in experimental design between patch size, perturbation strength, and the length of control and patch simulations. The protocol chosen on the basis of these experiments balances scientific utility with the simulation time and setup required by the Green's function approach. Running these simulations will further our understanding of many aspects of atmospheric response, from the pattern effect and radiative feedbacks to changes in circulation, cloudiness, and precipitation

Beyond equilibrium climate sensitivity

ISSN:1752-0908ISSN:1752-089

Transient Climate Sensitivity Depends on Base Climate Ocean Circulation

There is large uncertainty in the simulation of transient climate sensitivity. This study aims to understand how such uncertainty is related to the simulation of the base climate by comparing two simulations with the same model but in which CO2 is increased from either a preindustrial (1860) or a present-day (1990) control simulation. This allows different base climate ocean circulations that are representative of those in current climate models to be imposed upon a single model. As a result, the model projects different transient climate sensitivities that are comparable to the multimodel spread. The greater warming in the 1990-start run occurs primarily at high latitudes and particularly over regions of oceanic convection. In the 1990-start run, ocean overturning circulations are initially weaker and weaken less from CO2 forcing. As a consequence, there are smaller reductions in the poleward ocean heat transport, leading to less tropical ocean heat storage and less moderated high-latitude surface warming. This process is evident in both hemispheres, with changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the Antarctic Bottom Water formation dominating the warming differences in each hemisphere. The high-latitude warming in the 1990-start run is enhanced through albedo and cloud feedbacks, resulting in a smaller ocean heat uptake efficacy. The results highlight the importance of improving the base climate ocean circulation in order to provide a reasonable starting point for assessments of past climate change and the projection of future climate change

Transient and Quasi-Equilibrium Climate States at 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C Global Warming

Recent climate change is characterized by rapid global warming, but the goal of the Paris Agreement is to achieve a stable climate where global temperatures remain well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. Inferences about conditions at or below 2 degrees C are usually made based on transient climate projections. To better understand climate change impacts on natural and human systems under the Paris Agreement, we must understand how a stable climate may differ from transient conditions at the same warming level. Here we examine differences between transient and quasi-equilibrium climates using a statistical framework applied to greenhouse gas-only model simulations. This allows us to infer climate change patterns at 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C global warming in both transient and quasi-equilibrium climate states. We find substantial local differences between seasonal-average temperatures dependent on the rate of global warming, with mid-latitude land regions in boreal summer considerably warmer in a transient climate than a quasi-equilibrium state at both 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C global warming. In a rapidly warming world, such locations may experience a temporary emergence of a local climate change signal that weakens if the global climate stabilizes and the Paris Agreement goals are met. Our research demonstrates that the rate of global warming must be considered in regional projections.11Nsciescopu

Transient and Quasi‐Equilibrium Climate States at 1.5°C and 2°C Global Warming

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Simulated Tropical Precipitation Assessed across Three Major Phases of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)

The representation of tropical precipitation is evaluated across three generations of models participating in phases 3, 5, and 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). Compared to state-of-the-art observations, improvements in tropical precipitation in the CMIP6 models are identified for some metrics, but we find no general improvement in tropical precipitation on different temporal and spatial scales. Our results indicate overall little changes across the CMIP phases for the summer monsoons, the double-ITCZ bias, and the diurnal cycle of tropical precipitation. We find a reduced amount of drizzle events in CMIP6, but tropical precipitation occurs still too frequently. Continuous improvements across the CMIP phases are identified for the number of consecutive dry days, for the representation of modes of variability, namely, the Madden-Julian oscillation and El Nino-Southern Oscillation, and for the trends in dry months in the twentieth century. The observed positive trend in extreme wet months is, however, not captured by any of the CMIP phases, which simulate negative trends for extremely wet months in the twentieth century. The regional biases are larger than a climate change signal one hopes to use the models to identify. Given the pace of climate change as compared to the pace of model improvements to simulate tropical precipitation, we question the past strategy of the development of the present class of global climate models as the mainstay of the scientific response to climate change. We suggest the exploration of alternative approaches such as high-resolution storm-resolving models that can offer better prospects to inform us about how tropical precipitation might change with anthropogenic warming