Single-forcing large ensembles are a relatively new tool for quantifying the contributions of different anthropogenic and natural forcings to the historical and future projected evolution of the climate system. This study introduces a new single-forcing large ensemble with the Community Earth System Model, version 2 (CESM2), which can be used to separate the influences of greenhouse gases, anthropogenic aerosols, biomass burning aerosols, and all remaining forcings on the evolution of the Earth system from 1850 to 2050. Here, the forced responses of global near-surface temperature and associated drivers are examined in CESM2 and compared with those in a single-forcing large ensemble with CESM2’s predecessor, CESM1. The experimental design, the imposed forcing, and the model physics all differ between the CESM1 and CESM2 ensembles. In CESM1, an “all-but-one” approach was used whereby everything except the forcing of interest is time evolving, while in CESM2 an “only” approach is used, whereby only the forcing of interest is time evolving. This experimental design choice is shown to matter considerably for anthropogenic aerosol-forced change in CESM2, due to state dependence of cryospheric albedo feedbacks and nonlinearity in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) response to forcing. This impact of experimental design is, however, strongly dependent on the model physics and/or the imposed forcing, as the same sensitivity to experimental design is not found in CESM1, which appears to be an inherently less nonlinear model in both its AMOC behavior and cryospheric feedbacks.
The response of precipitation extremes (PEs) to global warming is found to be nonlinear in Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1) and other global climate models (Pendergrass et al., 2019), which led to the concern that it is not accurate to approximate the response of PE to a single forcing as the difference between simulations with all forcing agents and those that exclude one specific forcing. This calls into question previous model‐based results that the sensitivity of PE with warming due to aerosol forcing is significantly larger than that due to greenhouse gases (GHGs). We reevaluate the PE sensitivity to GHGs and aerosols using available CESM1 ensemble simulations. We show that although the PE response to warming is nonlinear in CESM1, especially for the high warming projected in the twenty‐first‐century, PE sensitivity to aerosols is still significantly stronger than that due to GHGs when the comparison is made within similar warming regimes to avoid the bias induced by the nonlinear behavior. But the difference is smaller than previously estimated. We also conclude that the additivity assumption is largely valid to isolate the PE response due to aerosol forcing from the paired simulations including the “all forcing” experiment when the warming regime is small (e.g., 1°C–2°C in the next few decades when aerosol forcing is projected to decline and becomes a major source of uncertainty for model projection).
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1841308
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10362140
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth and Space Science
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2333-5084
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract The sensitivity of the Arctic precipitation phases (solid and liquid) to the forcings from greenhouse gases (GHGs) and aerosols over 2016–2080 was investigated by using the Community Earth System Model Version 1. Results show that the warming caused by the two forcings results in an increasing trend in total precipitation and a solid‐to‐liquid precipitation transition in the Arctic. Under RCP8.5 scenario, the increased rate of Arctic mean precipitation with global warming forced by aerosol reduction (7.7%/°C) is twice greater than that by increased GHG emission (3.5%/°C). The sensitivity of rainfall to precipitation ratio (RPR) to various forcings is much higher than that of total precipitation in the Arctic. The increased rate of RPR due to global aerosol forcing (8.4%/°C) is approximately 3 times that due to GHG forcing (2.9%/°C) in the Arctic, the differences even larger over Greenland and the eastern Arctic Ocean, resulting in more rainfall in these areas.
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null (Ed.)Abstract. The Arctic is warming 2 to 3 times faster than the global average, partly due to changes in short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) including aerosols. In order to study the effects of atmospheric aerosols in this warming, recent past (1990–2014) and future (2015–2050) simulations have been carried out using the GISS-E2.1 Earth system model to study the aerosol burdens and their radiative and climate impacts over the Arctic (>60∘ N), using anthropogenic emissions from the Eclipse V6b and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) databases, while global annual mean greenhouse gas concentrations were prescribed and kept fixed in all simulations. Results showed that the simulations have underestimated observed surface aerosol levels, in particular black carbon (BC) and sulfate (SO42-), by more than 50 %, with the smallest biases calculated for the atmosphere-only simulations, where winds are nudged to reanalysis data. CMIP6 simulations performed slightly better in reproducing the observed surface aerosol concentrations and climate parameters, compared to the Eclipse simulations. In addition, simulations where atmosphere and ocean are fully coupled had slightly smaller biases in aerosol levels compared to atmosphere-only simulations without nudging. Arctic BC, organic aerosol (OA), and SO42- burdens decrease significantly in all simulations by 10 %–60 % following the reductions of 7 %–78 % in emission projections, with the Eclipse ensemble showing larger reductions in Arctic aerosol burdens compared to the CMIP6 ensemble. For the 2030–2050 period, the Eclipse ensemble simulated a radiative forcing due to aerosol–radiation interactions (RFARI) of -0.39±0.01 W m−2, which is −0.08 W m−2 larger than the 1990–2010 mean forcing (−0.32 W m−2), of which -0.24±0.01 W m−2 was attributed to the anthropogenic aerosols. The CMIP6 ensemble simulated a RFARI of −0.35 to −0.40 W m−2 for the same period, which is −0.01 to −0.06 W m−2 larger than the 1990–2010 mean forcing of −0.35 W m−2. The scenarios with little to no mitigation (worst-case scenarios) led to very small changes in the RFARI, while scenarios with medium to large emission mitigations led to increases in the negative RFARI, mainly due to the decrease in the positive BC forcing and the decrease in the negative SO42- forcing. The anthropogenic aerosols accounted for −0.24 to −0.26 W m−2 of the net RFARI in 2030–2050 period, in Eclipse and CMIP6 ensembles, respectively. Finally, all simulations showed an increase in the Arctic surface air temperatures throughout the simulation period. By 2050, surface air temperatures are projected to increase by 2.4 to 2.6 ∘C in the Eclipse ensemble and 1.9 to 2.6 ∘C in the CMIP6 ensemble, compared to the 1990–2010 mean. Overall, results show that even the scenarios with largest emission reductions leads to similar impact on the future Arctic surface air temperatures and sea-ice extent compared to scenarios with smaller emission reductions, implying reductions of greenhouse emissions are still necessary to mitigate climate change.more » « less
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The observed rate of global warming since the 1970s has been proposed as a strong constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response (TCR)—key metrics of the global climate response to greenhouse-gas forcing. Using CMIP5/6 models, we show that the inter-model relationship between warming and these climate sensitivity metrics (the basis for the constraint) arises from a similarity in transient and equilibrium warming patterns within the models, producing an effective climate sensitivity (EffCS) governing recent warming that is comparable to the value of ECS governing long-term warming under CO
forcing. However, CMIP5/6 historical simulations do not reproduce observed warming patterns. When driven by observed patterns, even high ECS models produce low EffCS values consistent with the observed global warming rate. The inability of CMIP5/6 models to reproduce observed warming patterns thus results in a bias in the modeled relationship between recent global warming and climate sensitivity. Correcting for this bias means that observed warming is consistent with wide ranges of ECS and TCR extending to higher values than previously recognized. These findings are corroborated by energy balance model simulations and coupled model (CESM1-CAM5) simulations that better replicate observed patterns via tropospheric wind nudging or Antarctic meltwater fluxes. Because CMIP5/6 models fail to simulate observed warming patterns, proposed warming-based constraints on ECS, TCR, and projected global warming are biased low. The results reinforce recent findings that the unique pattern of observed warming has slowed global-mean warming over recent decades and that how the pattern will evolve in the future represents a major source of uncertainty in climate projections. -
null (Ed.)Abstract. Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) has been directly estimated using reconstructions of past climates that are different than today's. A challenge to this approach is that temperature proxies integrate over the timescales of the fast feedback processes (e.g., changes in water vapor, snow, and clouds) that are captured in ECS as well as the slower feedback processes (e.g., changes in ice sheets and ocean circulation) that are not. A way around this issue is to treat the slow feedbacks as climate forcings and independently account for their impact on global temperature. Here we conduct a suite of Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) simulations using the Community Earth System Model version 1.2 (CESM1.2) to quantify the forcingand efficacy of land ice sheets (LISs) and greenhouse gases (GHGs) in order to estimate ECS. Our forcing and efficacy quantification adopts the effective radiative forcing (ERF) and adjustment framework and provides a complete accounting for the radiative, topographic, and dynamical impacts of LIS on surface temperatures. ERF and efficacy of LGM LIS are −3.2 W m−2 and 1.1, respectively. The larger-than-unity efficacy is caused by the temperature changes over land and the Northern Hemisphere subtropical oceans which are relatively larger than those in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2. The subtropical sea-surface temperature (SST) response is linked to LIS-induced wind changes and feedbacks in ocean–atmosphere coupling and clouds. ERF and efficacy of LGM GHG are −2.8 W m−2 and 0.9, respectively. The lower efficacy is primarily attributed to a smaller cloud feedback at colder temperatures. Our simulations further demonstrate that the direct ECS calculation using the forcing, efficacy, and temperature response in CESM1.2 overestimates the true value in the model by approximately 25 % due to the neglect of slow ocean dynamical feedback. This is supported by the greater cooling (6.8 ∘C) in a fully coupled LGM simulation than that (5.3 ∘C) in a slab ocean model simulation with ocean dynamics disabled. The majority (67 %) of the ocean dynamical feedback is attributed to dynamical changes in the Southern Ocean, where interactions between upper-ocean stratification, heat transport, and sea-ice cover are found to amplify the LGM cooling. Our study demonstrates the value of climate models in the quantification of climate forcings and the ocean dynamical feedback, which is necessary for an accurate direct ECS estimation.more » « less
