What is it about?
Climate models reveal that global surface warming is nearly proportional to cumulative carbon emissions on multi-decadal to centennial timescales. However, this near linear dependence between warming and cumulative carbon emissions is not understood. We present a single equation connecting surface warming and carbon emissions, which is based upon a heat balance and a global carbon budget. This near linear dependence between surface warming and carbon emissions is due to partially opposing effects of ocean heat and carbon uptake.
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Why is it important?
Projections from climate models differ in how much surface warming occurs for a given carbon emission. Our particular study suggests that a surface warming of 1.1 +/- 0.5 K occurs for every 1000 PgC of carbon emitted (1000 PgC is the same as a trillion tonnes of carbon). Our theory may be used to diagnose the global warming response in different climate models and mechanistically understand the differences between their projections.
Perspectives
We hope that this article provides a theoretical underpinning to understand the response of climate models. While the detailed projections of climate models are sensitive to different model choices and forcing, the overall response of the climate models is easy to understand: the more carbon we emit, the warmer it will become, and this effect may persist after carbon emissions cease. This study brought together authors with different skills and resources. For the first time, the study sets out new theory that connects surface warming and carbon emissions and then applied our theory to understand the response of a climate model (an intermediate complexity Earth system model). The climate model is forced by a pulse of carbon emitted over several hundred years and its response assessed over an integration of 5000 years.
Professor Richard G Williams
University of Liverpool Department of Earth Ocean and Ecological Sciences
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Sensitivity of climate to cumulative carbon emissions due to compensation of ocean heat and carbon uptake, Nature Geoscience, December 2014, Nature,
DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2304.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Our equation proves climate change is linked to emissions
Press article related to our paper
Author version of work
Author version of work
Poster at scientific conference
Invited poster of science presentation at American Geophysical Union, December 2014 meeting at San Francisco, USA.
A ResearchFeatures article
An article on how the oceans moderate the carbon cycle and climate change
What happens to emitted carbon?
Outreach video showing what happens to the emitted carbon
Carbon emissions and surface warming
Outreach video about the equation we have used to understand how surface warming links to carbon emissions
Paris or Bust?
Outreach video drawing on our carbon budget projections
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
