Energy budget diagnosis of changing climate feedback

Cael, B. B., Bloch-Johnson, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8465-5383, Ceppi, P., Fredriksen, H.-B., Goodwin, P., Gregory, J. M., Smith, C. J. and Williams, R. G. (2023) Energy budget diagnosis of changing climate feedback. Science Advances, 9 (16). ISSN 2375-2548 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adf9302

Abstract/Summary

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/m2K 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.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/111322
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > NCAS
Publisher	American Association for the Advancement of Science
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