Stjern, CW, Forster, PM orcid.org/0000-0002-6078-0171, Jia, H et al. (10 more authors) (2023) The Time Scales of Climate Responses to Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols. Journal of Climate, 36 (11). pp. 3537-3551. ISSN 0894-8755
Abstract
The climate system responds to changes in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases or aerosols through rapid processes, triggered within hours and days, and through slower processes, where the full response may only be seen after centuries. In this paper, we aim to elucidate the mechanisms operating on time scales of hours to years to better understand the response of key climate quantities such as energy fluxes, temperature, and precipitation after a sudden increase in either carbon dioxide (CO2), black carbon (BC), or sulfate (SO4) aerosols. The results are based on idealized simulations from six global climate models. We find that the effect of changing ocean temperatures kicks in after a couple of months. Rapid precipitation reductions start occurring instantly and are established after just a few days. For BC, they constitute most of the equilibrium response. For CO2 and SO4, the magnitude of the precipitation response gradually increases as surface warming/cooling evolves, and for CO2, the sign of the response changes from negative to positive after 2 years. Rapid cloud adjustments are typically established within the first 24 h, and while the magnitude of cloud feedbacks for CO2 and SO4 increases over time, the geographical pattern of the equilibrium cloud change is present already after the first year. While there are model differences, our work underscores the overall similarity of the major time-varying processes and responses simulated by current global models and hence the robustness of key features of simulated responses to historical and future anthropogenic forcing.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 American Meteorological Society. See https://www.ametsoc.org/PUBSCopyrightPolicy for further information. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Atmosphere; Aerosols; Climate change; Clouds; Climate models |
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 EU - European Union 820829 EU - European Union 10043512 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jul 2023 11:50 |
Last Modified: | 02 Nov 2023 01:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Meteorological Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1175/jcli-d-22-0513.1 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:200578 |