| Literature DB >> 32025453 |
T B Richardson1, P M Forster1, C J Smith1, A C Maycock1, T Wood1, T Andrews2, O Boucher3, G Faluvegi4, D Fläschner5, Ø Hodnebrog6, M Kasoar7, A Kirkevåg8, J-F Lamarque9, J Mülmenstädt10, G Myhre6, D Olivié8, R W Portmann11, B H Samset6, D Shawki7, D Shindell12, P Stier13, T Takemura14, A Voulgarakis7, D Watson-Parris13.
Abstract
Quantifying the efficacy of different climate forcings is important for understanding the real-world climate sensitivity. This study presents a systematic multimodel analysis of different climate driver efficacies using simulations from the Precipitation Driver and Response Model Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP). Efficacies calculated from instantaneous radiative forcing deviate considerably from unity across forcing agents and models. Effective radiative forcing (ERF) is a better predictor of global mean near-surface air temperature (GSAT) change. Efficacies are closest to one when ERF is computed using fixed sea surface temperature experiments and adjusted for land surface temperature changes using radiative kernels. Multimodel mean efficacies based on ERF are close to one for global perturbations of methane, sulfate, black carbon, and insolation, but there is notable intermodel spread. We do not find robust evidence that the geographic location of sulfate aerosol affects its efficacy. GSAT is found to respond more slowly to aerosol forcing than CO2 in the early stages of simulations. Despite these differences, we find that there is no evidence for an efficacy effect on historical GSAT trend estimates based on simulations with an impulse response model, nor on the resulting estimates of climate sensitivity derived from the historical period. However, the considerable intermodel spread in the computed efficacies means that we cannot rule out an efficacy-induced bias of ±0.4 K in equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling when estimated using the historical GSAT trend. ©2019. The Authors.Entities:
Keywords: Climate Sensitivity; Efficacy; PDRMIP; Radiative Forcing; Surface temperature
Year: 2019 PMID: 32025453 PMCID: PMC6988499 DOI: 10.1029/2019JD030581
Source DB: PubMed Journal: J Geophys Res Atmos ISSN: 2169-897X Impact factor: 4.261
Figure 1IRF , IRF , RF , ERF , ERF , and ERF for the five core PDRMIP forcings. Colored diamonds denote the multimodel mean, and error bars show the intermodel standard deviation. Individual model results are represented by gray diamonds. Hollow gray diamonds denote models which perturbed emissions rather than concentrations in the aerosol experiments. One model (HadGEM3) is off the bottom of the scale for 5×SO4.
PDRMIP Multimodel Mean Radiative Forcing (See section 2.3 for Definitions), GSAT Response, Climate Feedback Parameter Calculated Using First 20 years (α_20), Final 80 years (α_80), and Full 100 years (α) of Simulations, and Efficacies (See section 2.4 for Definitions) for the Five Core Experiments
| 2×CO2 | 3×CH4 | 2%SOL | 5×SO4 | 10×BC | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 4.45 ± 0.11 | 1.04 ± 0.09 | — | — | — |
|
| 2.20 ± 0.22 | 1.13 ± 0.13 | 4.81 ± 0.05 | −1.73 ± 1.02 | 2.17 ± 1.08 |
|
| 3.76 ± 0.27 | 1.21 ± 0.28 | 4.55 ± 0.06 | −3.64 ± 1.20 | 2.29 ± 1.15 |
|
| 3.71 ± 0.30 | 1.15 ± 0.25 | 4.17 ± 0.13 | −3.71 ± 1.94 | 1.18 ± 0.75 |
|
| 4.19 ± 0.35 | 1.25 ± 0.31 | 4.32 ± 0.12 | −3.78 ± 1.99 | 1.25 ± 0.80 |
|
| 3.81 ± 0.57 | 1.06 ± 0.25 | 3.89 ± 0.29 | −3.70 ± 1.79 | 0.83 ± 0.53 |
| Δ | 2.44 ± 0.75 | 0.67 ± 0.33 | 2.46 ± 0.97 | −2.45 ± 1.85 | 0.74 ± 0.54 |
|
| −1.19 ± 0.50 | −1.06 ± 0.53 | −1.24 ± 0.51 | −1.11 ± 0.34 | −0.89 ± 0.46 |
|
| −1.27 ± 0.52 | −1.28 ± 0.57 | −1.36 ± 0.51 | −1.51 ± 0.85 | −0.97 ± 0.77 |
|
| −1.03 ± 0.57 | −0.93 ± 0.73 | −1.04 ± 0.51 | −0.80 ± 0.36 | −0.78 ± 0.60 |
| Δ | 0.55 ± 0.19 | 0.61 ± 0.33 | — | — | — |
| Δ | 1.14 ± 0.44 | 0.57 ± 0.35 | 0.52 ± 0.21 | 1.25 ± 0.81 | 0.25 ± 0.21 |
| Δ | 0.66 ± 0.24 | 0.57 ± 0.29 | 0.54 ± 0.21 | 0.66 ± 0.25 | 0.40 ± 0.25 |
| Δ | 0.67 ± 0.22 | 0.58 ± 0.23 | 0.59 ± 0.23 | 0.62 ± 0.19 | 0.63 ± 0.37 |
| Δ | 0.59 ± 0.19 | 0.54 ± 0.22 | 0.57 ± 0.22 | 0.61 ± 0.18 | 0.60 ± 0.34 |
| Δ | 0.66 ± 0.25 | 0.66 ± 0.32 | 0.63 ± 0.25 | 0.63 ± 0.22 | 1.22 ± 1.45 |
|
| 1.09 ± 0.35 | 0.89 ± 0.09 | 2.97 ± 1.86 | 0.54 ± 0.29 | |
|
| — | 0.48 ± 0.17 | 0.44 ± 0.04 | 1.50 ± 0.99 | 0.27 ± 0.13 |
|
| — | 0.84 ± 0.21 | 0.81 ± 0.06 | 0.99 ± 0.09 | 0.55 ± 0.16 |
|
| — | 0.87 ± 0.15 | 0.87 ± 0.07 | 0.94 ± 0.16 | 0.87 ± 0.31 |
|
| — | 0.91 ± 0.18 | 0.95 ± 0.07 | 1.04 ± 0.16 | 0.93 ± 0.32 |
|
| — | 0.97 ± 0.23 | 0.96 ± 0.09 | 0.95 ± 0.25 | 1.48 ± 1.09 |
|
| — | 1.22 ± 0.47 | 0.97 ± 0.12 | 1.01 ± 0.29 | 1.36 ± 0.26 |
Note. Uncertainty bounds are the standard deviation of the intermodel spread.
Figure 2Multimodel mean ERF distributions of core PDRMIP experiments. Hatching shows where the multimodel mean is less than the intermodel standard deviation.
Figure 3Global mean E , E , E , E , E , E , and E calculated for PDRMIP forcing experiments. Colored diamonds denote the multimodel mean, and error bars show the intermodel standard deviation. Individual model results are represented by gray diamonds. Hollow gray diamonds denote models which perturbed emissions rather than concentrations in the aerosol experiments. One model result lies off the top of the scale for 5×SO4 E (MIROC‐SPRINTARS) and 10×BC E (HadGEM3).
Figure 4E estimates for each PDRMIP model. Error bars denote the 5–95% confidence interval based on the interannual variability of the control run. Models which perturbed emissions rather than concentrations in the aerosol experiments are shown in red. CESM1‐CAM4 and ECHAM‐HAM are run with a slab ocean.
Figure 5Multimodel mean surface temperature response for core PDRMIP forcing experiments (years 81–100 of coupled runs), normalized by the GSAT response. Hatching shows where the multimodel mean is less than the intermodel standard deviation.
Figure 6Multimodel mean difference in normalized surface temperature responses for each of the core PDRMIP perturbation experiments relative to temperature response to 2×CO2. Temperature responses are normalized by ERF . Hatching shows where the multimodel mean is less than the intermodel standard deviation.
Figure 7PDRMIP multimodel zonal mean temperature response to forcing normalized by GSAT change. The gray contours show the multimodel mean zonal temperature climatology. The stippling shows where the MMM difference is less than ±1 standard deviation of the intermodel spread.
Figure 8ERF (top) and E (bottom) of each model for global and regional forcing experiments performed by a subset of PDRMIP models. The error bars denote the 5–95% confidence interval based on the interannual variability of the control run. Models which perturbed emissions rather than concentrations in the aerosol experiments are shown in red. CESM1‐CAM4 and ECHAM‐HAM are run with a slab ocean.
Figure 9Multimodel mean ERF for (a) 10×SO4asia and (b) 10×SO4eur. Multimodel mean surface temperature response normalized by the GSAT response for (c) 10×SO4asia and (d) 10×SO4eur. Multimodel mean difference in normalized surface temperature response relative to 2×CO2 for (e) 10×SO4asia and (f) 10×SO4eur. The temperature response is normalized by ERF .
Figure 10Panel (a) shows the multimodel mean GSAT response curves as a function of time for 2×CO2, 5×SO4, and 2%SOL normalized by ERF . The intermodel standard deviation is shown in gray. Panel (b) shows the multimodel mean historical GSAT change computed using the impulse response model described in section 2.5 not accounting for efficacies (red) and accounting for efficacies (black dotted). The difference is shown in blue. Individual model results not accounting for efficacies are shown by dark gray lines GSAT and accounting for efficacies by light gray lines. Panel (c) shows the same as panel (b) for the period 1915–2014 and therefore includes no extrapolation of the response curves beyond the 100 years of PDRMIP data.