David Paynter

Dominance of the Southern Ocean in Anthropogenic Carbon and Heat Uptake in CMIP5 Models

The authors assess the uptake, transport, and storage of oceanic anthropogenic carbon and heat over the period1861‐2005inanewset ofcoupledcarbon‐climateEarthsystemmodelsconductedforthefifthphaseof the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), with a particular focus on the Southern Ocean. Simulations show that the Southern Ocean south of 308S, occupying 30% of global surface ocean area, accounts for 43%63% (4265PgC) of anthropogenic CO2and 75%622% (2369 310 22 J) of heat uptake by the ocean over the historical period. Northward transport out of the Southern Ocean is vigorous, reducing the storage to 33 6 6Pg anthropogenic carbon and 12 6 7 3 10 22 J heat in the region. The CMIP5 models, as a class, tend to underestimate the observation-based global anthropogenic carbon storage but simulate trends inglobaloceanheatstorageoverthelast50yearswithinuncertaintiesofobservation-basedestimates.CMIP5 models suggest global and Southern Ocean CO2 uptake have been largely unaffected by recent climate variability and change. Anthropogenic carbon and heat storage show a common broad-scale pattern of change, but ocean heat storage is more structured than ocean carbon storage. The results highlight the significance of the Southern Ocean for the global climate and as the region where models differ the most in representation of anthropogenic CO2 and, in particular, heat uptake.

Extending the relationship between global warming and cumulative carbon emissions to multi-millennial timescales

The transient climate response to cumulative carbon emissions (TCRE) is a highly policy-relevant quantity in climate science. The TCRE suggests that peak warming is linearly proportional to cumulative carbon emissions and nearly independent of the emissions scenario. Here, we use simulations of the Earth System Model (ESM) from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) to show that global mean surface temperature may increase by 0.5 °C after carbon emissions are stopped at 2 °C global warming, implying an increase in the coefficient relating global warming to cumulative carbon emissions on multi-centennial timescales. The simulations also suggest a 20% lower quota on cumulative carbon emissions allowed to achieve a policy-driven limit on global warming. ESM estimates from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5–ESMs) qualitatively agree on this result, whereas Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) simulations, used in the IPCC 5th assessment report to assess the robustness of TCRE on multi-centennial timescales, suggest a post-emissions decrease in temperature. The reason for this discrepancy lies in the smaller simulated realized warming fraction in CMIP5–ESMs, including GFDL ESM2M, than in EMICs when carbon emissions increase. The temperature response to cumulative carbon emissions can be characterized by three different phases and the linear TCRE framework is only valid during the first phase when carbon emissions increase. For longer timescales, when emissions tape off, two new metrics are introduced that better characterize the time-dependent temperature response to cumulative carbon emissions: the equilibrium climate response to cumulative carbon emissions and the multi-millennial climate response to cumulative carbon emissions.

Radiative flux and forcing parameterization error in aerosol‐free clear skies

Abstract This article reports on the accuracy in aerosol‐ and cloud‐free conditions of the radiation parameterizations used in climate models. Accuracy is assessed relative to observationally validated reference models for fluxes under present‐day conditions and forcing (flux changes) from quadrupled concentrations of carbon dioxide. Agreement among reference models is typically within 1 W/m2, while parameterized calculations are roughly half as accurate in the longwave and even less accurate, and more variable, in the shortwave. Absorption of shortwave radiation is underestimated by most parameterizations in the present day and has relatively large errors in forcing. Error in present‐day conditions is essentially unrelated to error in forcing calculations. Recent revisions to parameterizations have reduced error in most cases. A dependence on atmospheric conditions, including integrated water vapor, means that global estimates of parameterization error relevant for the radiative forcing of climate change will require much more ambitious calculations.

Sensitivity of radiative forcing, ocean heat uptake, and climate feedback to changes in anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosols

We use both prescribed sea surface temperature and fully coupled versions of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory coupled climate model (CM3) to analyze the sensitivity of radiative forcing, ocean heat uptake, and climate feedback to changes in anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosols considered separately over the 1870 to 2005 period. The global anthropogenic aerosol climate feedback parameter (− α) of −1.13 ± 0.33 Wm−2 K−1 is indistinguishable from the greenhouse gas − α of −1.28 ± 0.23 Wm−2 K−1. However, this greenhouse gas climate feedback parameter is about 50% larger than that obtained for CM3 from a widely used linear extrapolation method of regressing Earths top of atmosphere imbalance against surface air temperature change in idealized CO2 radiative forcing experiments. This implies that the global mean surface temperature change due to forcing over the 1870–2005 period is 50% smaller than that predicted using the climate feedback parameter obtained from idealized experiments. This difference results from time dependence in α, which makes the radiative forcing obtained by the fixed sea surface temperature method incompatible with that obtained by the linear extrapolation method fitted over the first 150 years after CO2 is quadrupled. On a regional scale, α varies greatly between the greenhouse gas and aerosol case. This suggests that the relationship between transient and equilibrium climate sensitivities obtained from idealized CO2 simulations, using techniques such as regional feedback analysis and heat uptake efficacy, may not hold for other forcing scenarios.

Investigating the impact of the shortwave water vapor continuum upon climate simulations using GFDL global models

We have added the BPS-MTCKD 2.0 parameterization for the shortwave water vapor continuum to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) global model. We find that inclusion of the shortwave continuum in the fixed sea surface temperature case (AM3) results in a similar increase in shortwave absorption and heating rates to that seen for the “benchmark” line-by-line radiative transfer calculations. The surface energy budget adjusts to the inclusion of the shortwave continuum predominantly through a decrease in both surface latent and sensible heat. This leads to a decrease in tropical convection and a subsequent 1% reduction in tropical rainfall. The inclusion of the shortwave continuum in the fully coupled atmosphere-ocean model (CM3) yields similar results, but a smaller overall reduction of 0.5% in tropical rainfall due to global warming of ~0.1 K linked to enhanced near-infrared absorption. We also investigated the impact of adding a stronger version of BPS-MTCKD (version 1.1) to the global climate model (GCM). In most cases we found that the GCM responds in a similar manner to both continua but that the strength of the response scales with the level of absorbed shortwave radiation. Global warming experiments were run in both AM3 and CM3. The shortwave continuum was found to cause a 7 to 15% increase in clear-sky global dimming depending upon whether the stronger or weaker continuum version was used. Neither version resulted in a significant change to the climate sensitivity.

Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity Obtained From Multimillennial Runs of Two GFDL Climate Models

Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), defined as the long‐term change in global mean surface air temperature in response to doubling atmospheric CO₂, is usually computed from short atmospheric simulations over a mixed layer ocean, or inferred using a linear regression over a short‐time period of adjustment. We report the actual ECS from multimillenial simulations of two Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) general circulation models (GCMs), ESM2M, and CM3 of 3.3 K and 4.8 K, respectively. Both values are ~1 K higher than estimates for the same models reported in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change obtained by regressing the Earths energy imbalance against temperature. This underestimate is mainly due to changes in the climate feedback parameter (−α) within the first century after atmospheric CO₂ has stabilized. For both GCMs it is possible to estimate ECS with linear regression to within 0.3 K by increasing CO₂ at 1% per year to doubling and using years 51–350 after CO₂ is constant. We show that changes in −α differ between the two GCMs and are strongly tied to the changes in both vertical velocity at 500 hPa (ω500) and estimated inversion strength that the GCMs experience during the progression toward the equilibrium. This suggests that while cloud physics parametrizations are important for determining the strength of −α, the substantially different atmospheric state resulting from a changed sea surface temperature pattern may be of equal importance.

Changes of the Tropical Tropopause Layer under Global Warming

AbstractThis paper investigates changes in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) in response to carbon dioxide increase and surface warming separately in an atmospheric general circulation model, finding that both effects lead to a warmer tropical tropopause. Surface warming also results in an upward shift of the tropopause. A detailed heat budget analysis is performed to quantify the contributions from different radiative and dynamic processes to changes in the TTL temperature. When carbon dioxide increases with fixed surface temperature, a warmer TTL mainly results from the direct radiative effect of carbon dioxide increase. With surface warming, the largest contribution to the TTL warming comes from the radiative effect of the warmer troposphere, which is partly canceled by the radiative effect of the moistening at the TTL. Strengthening of the stratospheric circulation following surface warming cools the lower stratosphere dynamically and radiatively via changes in ozone. These two effects are of compar...

Competing Atmospheric and Surface-Driven Impacts of Absorbing Aerosols on the East Asian Summertime Climate

AbstractEast Asia has some of the largest concentrations of absorbing aerosols globally, and these, along with the region’s scattering aerosols, have both reduced the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface regionally (solar dimming) and increased shortwave absorption within the atmosphere, particularly during the peak months of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). This study analyzes how atmospheric absorption and surface solar dimming compete in driving the response of regional summertime climate to anthropogenic aerosols, which dominates, and why—issues of particular importance for predicting how East Asian climate will respond to projected changes in absorbing and scattering aerosol emissions in the future. These questions are probed in a state-of-the-art general circulation model using a combination of realistic and novel idealized aerosol perturbations that allow analysis of the relative influence of absorbing aerosols’ atmospheric and surface-driven impacts on regional circulation and c...

Dependence of model-simulated response to ozone depletion on stratospheric polar vortex climatology†

We contrast the responses to ozone depletion in two climate models: CAM3 and GFDL AM3. Although both models are forced with identical ozone concentration changes, the stratospheric cooling simulated in CAM3 is 30% stronger than in AM3 in annual mean, and twice as strong in December. We find that this difference originates from the dynamical response to ozone depletion, and its strength can be linked to the timing of the climatological springtime polar vortex breakdown. This mechanism is further supported by a variant of the AM3 simulation in which the Southern stratospheric zonal wind climatology is nudged to be CAM3-like. Given that the delayed breakdown of the Southern polar vortex is a common bias among many climate models, previous model-based assessments of the forced responses to ozone depletion may have been somewhat overestimated.

Rapid and reliable assessment of methane impacts on climate

It is clear that the most effective way to limit global temperature rise and associated impacts is to reduce human emissions of greenhouse gases, including methane. However, quantification of the climate benefits of mitigation options are complicated by the contrast in the timescales at which short-lived climate pollutants, such as methane, persist in the atmosphere compared to carbon dioxide. Whereas simple metrics fail to capture the differential impacts across all timescales, sophisticated climate models that can address these temporal dynamics are often inaccessible, timeintensive, require special infrastructure, and include high unforced interannual variability that makes it difficult to analyse small changes in forcings. On the other hand, reducedcomplexity climate models that use basic knowledge from observations and complex Earth system models offer an ideal compromise in that they provide quick, reliable insights into climate responses, with only limited computational infrastructure needed. They are particularly useful for simulating the response to forcings of small changes in different climate pollutants, due to the absence of internal variability. In this paper, we build on previous evaluations of the freely available and easy-to-run reduced-complexity climate model MAGICC by comparing temperature responses to historical methane emissions to those from a more complex coupled global chemistry–climate model, GFDL-CM3. While we find that the overall forcings and temperature responses are comparable between the two models, the prominent role of unforced variability in CM3 demonstrates how sophisticated models are potentially inappropriate tools for small forcing scenarios. On the other hand, we find that MAGICC can easily and rapidly provide robust data on climate responses to changes in methane emissions with clear signals unfettered by variability. We are therefore able to build confidence in using reduced-complexity climate models such as MAGICC for purposes of understanding the climate implications of methane mitigation.