A large ozone-circulation feedback and its implications for global warming assessments

State-of-the-art climate models now include more climate processes simulated at higher spatial resolution than ever. Nevertheless, some processes, such as atmospheric chemical feedbacks, are still computationally expensive and are often ignored in climate simulations. Here we present evidence that the representation of stratospheric ozone in climate models can have a first-order impact on estimates of effective climate sensitivity. Using a comprehensive atmosphere–ocean chemistry–climate model, we find an increase in global mean surface warming of around 1 °C (∼20%) after 75 years when ozone is prescribed at pre-industrial levels compared with when it is allowed to evolve self-consistently in response to an abrupt 4×CO₂ forcing. The difference is primarily attributed to changes in long-wave radiative feedbacks associated with circulation-driven decreases in tropical lower stratospheric ozone and related stratospheric water vapour and cirrus cloud changes. This has important implications for global model intercomparison studies in which participating models often use simplified treatments of atmospheric composition changes that are consistent with neither the specified greenhouse gas forcing scenario nor the associated atmospheric circulation feedbacks.