TY - JOUR
T1 - Energy budget diagnosis of changing climate feedback
AU - Cael, B. B.
AU - Bloch-Johnson, Jonah
AU - Ceppi, Paulo
AU - Fredriksen, Hege-Beate
AU - Goodwin, Philip
AU - Gregory, Jonathan M.
AU - Smith, Christopher J.
AU - Williams, Richard G.
N1 - Funding Information:
B.B.C. acknowledges support from the National Environmental Research Council through Enhancing Climate Observations, Models and Data and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 820989 (project COMFORT). The work reflects only the authors’ view; the European Commission and their executive agency are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information the work contains. P.C. was supported by an Imperial College Research Fellowship and by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council grants NE/T006250/1 and NE/V012045/1. C.J.S. was supported by a NERC/IIASA Collaborative Research Fellowship (NE/T009381/1). R.G.W. was supported by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/T007788/1. J.B.-J. and J.M.G. were supported by the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 786427, project “Couplet”).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved.
PY - 2023/4/21
Y1 - 2023/4/21
N2 - The climate feedback determines how Earth’s climate responds to anthropogenic forcing. It is thought to have been more negative in recent decades due to a sea surface temperature “pattern effect,” whereby warming is concentrated in the western tropical Pacific, where nonlocal radiative feedbacks are very negative. This phenomenon has however primarily been studied within climate models. We diagnose a pattern effect from historical records as an evolution of the climate feedback over the past five decades. Our analysis assumes a constant rate of change of the climate feedback, which is justified post hoc. We find a decrease in climate feedback by 0.8 ± 0.5 W m−2 K−1 over the past 50 years, corresponding to a reduction in climate sensitivity. Earth system models’ climate feedbacks instead increase over this period. Understanding and simulating this historical trend and its future evolution are critical for reliable climate projections.
AB - The climate feedback determines how Earth’s climate responds to anthropogenic forcing. It is thought to have been more negative in recent decades due to a sea surface temperature “pattern effect,” whereby warming is concentrated in the western tropical Pacific, where nonlocal radiative feedbacks are very negative. This phenomenon has however primarily been studied within climate models. We diagnose a pattern effect from historical records as an evolution of the climate feedback over the past five decades. Our analysis assumes a constant rate of change of the climate feedback, which is justified post hoc. We find a decrease in climate feedback by 0.8 ± 0.5 W m−2 K−1 over the past 50 years, corresponding to a reduction in climate sensitivity. Earth system models’ climate feedbacks instead increase over this period. Understanding and simulating this historical trend and its future evolution are critical for reliable climate projections.
UR - https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adf9302
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153553781&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.adf9302
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.adf9302
M3 - Article
SN - 2375-2548
VL - 9
JO - Science Advances
JF - Science Advances
IS - 16
M1 - eadf9302
ER -