Smith, CJ orcid.org/0000-0003-0599-4633, Harris, GR, Palmer, MD et al. (8 more authors)
(2021)
Energy Budget Constraints on the Time History of Aerosol Forcing and Climate Sensitivity.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
e2020JD033622.
ISSN 2169-897X
Abstract
An observationally-constrained time series of historical aerosol effective radiative forcing (ERF) from 1750 to 2019 is developed in this paper. We find that the time history of aerosol ERFs diagnosed in CMIP6 models exhibits considerable variation and explore how the time history of aerosol forcing influences the probability distributions of present-day aerosol forcing and emergent metrics such as climate sensitivity. Using a simple energy balance model, trained on CMIP6 climate models and constrained by observed near-surface warming and ocean heat uptake, we derive estimates for the historical aerosol forcing. We find 2005-2014 mean aerosol ERF to be -1.1 (-1.8 to -0.5) W m-2 relative to 1750. Assuming recently published historical emissions from fossil fuel and industrial sectors and biomass burning emissions from SSP2-4.5, aerosol ERF in 2019 is -0.9 (-1.5 to -0.4) W m-2. There is a modest recovery in aerosol forcing (+0.025 W m-2 decade-1) between 1980 and 2014. This analysis also gives a 5-95% range of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of 1.8-5.1°C (best estimate 3.1°C) with a transient climate response (TCR) of 1.2-2.6°C (best estimate 1.8°C).
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | This paper has 11 authors. You can scroll the list below to see them all or them all.
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | aerosol; forcing; historical; climate; sensitivity; CMIP6 |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/T009381/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 15 Jun 2021 15:35 |
Last Modified: | 14 Dec 2021 01:38 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1029/2020jd033622 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:175213 |