Articles | Volume 12, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-709-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-709-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Bayesian estimation of Earth's climate sensitivity and transient climate response from observational warming and heat content datasets
School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK
B. B. Cael
Ocean Biogeosciences, National Oceanography Centre, European Way, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK
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Richard G. Williams, Philip Goodwin, Paulo Ceppi, Chris D. Jones, and Andrew H. MacDougall
Biogeosciences, 22, 7167–7186, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-7167-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-7167-2025, 2025
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How the climate system responds when carbon emissions cease is an open question: some climate models reveal a slight warming, whereas most models reveal a slight cooling. The temperature response after net zero is connected via a new framework to quantify and compare the opposing thermal and carbon drivers. The climate response after net zero is controlled by how the planet takes up heat and radiates heat back to space, and how the land and ocean sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
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Preprint archived
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Climate feedbacks are normally evaluated by considering the change over time for Earth's energy balance and surface temperatures in the climate system. However, we only have around 1 degree Celsius of temperature change to utilise. Here, climate feedbacks are instead evaluated from the change in latitude of Earth's energy balance and surface temperatures, where we have around 70 degrees Celsius of temperature change to utilise.
Richard G. Williams, Philip Goodwin, Paulo Ceppi, Chris D. Jones, and Andrew H. MacDougall
Biogeosciences, 22, 7167–7186, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-7167-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-7167-2025, 2025
Short summary
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How the climate system responds when carbon emissions cease is an open question: some climate models reveal a slight warming, whereas most models reveal a slight cooling. The temperature response after net zero is connected via a new framework to quantify and compare the opposing thermal and carbon drivers. The climate response after net zero is controlled by how the planet takes up heat and radiates heat back to space, and how the land and ocean sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
Philip Goodwin, Richard Williams, Paulo Ceppi, and B. B. Cael
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2307, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-2307, 2023
Preprint archived
Short summary
Short summary
Climate feedbacks are normally evaluated by considering the change over time for Earth's energy balance and surface temperatures in the climate system. However, we only have around 1 degree Celsius of temperature change to utilise. Here, climate feedbacks are instead evaluated from the change in latitude of Earth's energy balance and surface temperatures, where we have around 70 degrees Celsius of temperature change to utilise.
Christoph Heinze, Thorsten Blenckner, Peter Brown, Friederike Fröb, Anne Morée, Adrian L. New, Cara Nissen, Stefanie Rynders, Isabel Seguro, Yevgeny Aksenov, Yuri Artioli, Timothée Bourgeois, Friedrich Burger, Jonathan Buzan, B. B. Cael, Veli Çağlar Yumruktepe, Melissa Chierici, Christopher Danek, Ulf Dieckmann, Agneta Fransson, Thomas Frölicher, Giovanni Galli, Marion Gehlen, Aridane G. González, Melchor Gonzalez-Davila, Nicolas Gruber, Örjan Gustafsson, Judith Hauck, Mikko Heino, Stephanie Henson, Jenny Hieronymus, I. Emma Huertas, Fatma Jebri, Aurich Jeltsch-Thömmes, Fortunat Joos, Jaideep Joshi, Stephen Kelly, Nandini Menon, Precious Mongwe, Laurent Oziel, Sólveig Ólafsdottir, Julien Palmieri, Fiz F. Pérez, Rajamohanan Pillai Ranith, Juliano Ramanantsoa, Tilla Roy, Dagmara Rusiecka, J. Magdalena Santana Casiano, Yeray Santana-Falcón, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Séférian, Miriam Seifert, Anna Shchiptsova, Bablu Sinha, Christopher Somes, Reiner Steinfeldt, Dandan Tao, Jerry Tjiputra, Adam Ulfsbo, Christoph Völker, Tsuyoshi Wakamatsu, and Ying Ye
Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2023-182, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2023-182, 2023
Revised manuscript not accepted
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For assessing the consequences of human-induced climate change for the marine realm, it is necessary to not only look at gradual changes but also at abrupt changes of environmental conditions. We summarise abrupt changes in ocean warming, acidification, and oxygen concentration as the key environmental factors for ecosystems. Taking these abrupt changes into account requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to a larger extent than previously thought to limit respective damage.
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Short summary
Climate sensitivityis a key measure of how sensitive Earth's climate is to human release of greenhouse gasses, such as from fossil fuels. However, there is still uncertainty as to the value of climate sensitivity, in part because different climate feedbacks operate over multiple timescales. This study assesses hundreds of millions of climate simulations against historical observations to reduce uncertainty in climate sensitivity and future climate warming.
Climate sensitivityis a key measure of how sensitive Earth's climate is to human release of...
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