Exploring Granger causality between global average observed time series of carbon dioxide and temperature

Detection and attribution methodologies have been developed over the years to delineate anthropogenic from natural drivers of climate change and impacts. A majority of prior attribution studies, which have used climate model simulations and observations or reanalysis datasets, have found evidence for human-induced climate change. This papers tests the hypothesis that Granger causality can be extracted from the bivariate series of globally averaged land surface temperature (GT) observations and observed CO₂ in the atmosphere using a reverse cumulative Granger causality test. This proposed extension of the classic Granger causality test is better suited to handle the multisource nature of the data and provides further statistical rigor. The results from this modified test show evidence for Granger causality from a proxy of total radiative forcing (RC), which in this case is a transformation of atmospheric CO₂, to GT. Prior literature failed to extract these results via the standard Granger causality test. A forecasting test shows that a holdout set of GT can be better predicted with the addition of lagged RC as a predictor, lending further credibility to the Granger test results. However, since second-order-differenced RC is neither normally distributed nor variance stationary, caution should be exercised in the interpretation of our results.     

Testing for linear Granger causality from?natural/anthropogenic forcings to global temperature anomalies

In this paper, we analyze the Granger causality from natural or anthropogenic forcings to global temperature anomalies. The lag-augmented Wald test is performed, and its robustness is also evaluated considering bootstrap method. The results show there is no-evidence of Granger causality from natural forcings to global temperature. On the contrary, a detectable Granger causality is found from anthropogenic forcings to global temperature confirming that greenhouse gases have an important role on recent global warming.     

气候检测与归因的格兰杰检验法

 为揭示气候变化并探索其可能原因,引入了格兰杰因果检验法。在叙述其基本原理的基础上,对影响中国气温变化的若干因子进行了检验。论证了通过检验的因子与中国气温变化的可能物理联系,着重说明了二氧化碳增加对中国气温变化的影响,解释了我国增温滞后于全球气温变化的原因。由此证实格兰杰因果检验法是气候变化检测与归因的一种有用的新方法。通过计算和分析,证实了格兰杰检验法的可用性。     

气候检测与归因的格兰杰检验法

为揭示气候变化并探索其可能原因,引入了格兰杰因果检验法。在叙述其基本原理的基础上,对影响中国气温变化的若干因子进行了检验。论证了通过检验的因子与中国气温变化的可能物理联系,着重说明了二氧化碳增加对中国气温变化的影响,解释了我国增温滞后于全球气温变化的原因。由此证实格兰杰因果检验法是气候变化检测与归因的一种有用的新方法。通过计算和分析,证实了格兰杰检验法的可用性。     

Multi-scale analysis of global temperature changes and trend of a drop in temperature in the next 20 years

Summary A novel multi-timescale analysis method, Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), is used to diagnose the variation of the annual mean temperature data of the global, Northern Hemisphere (NH) and China from 1881 to 2002. The results show that: (1) Temperature can be completely decomposed into four timescales quasi-periodic oscillations including an ENSO-like mode, a 6–8-year signal, a 20-year signal and a 60-year signal, as well as a trend. With each contributing ration of the quasi-periodicity discussed, the trend and the 60-year timescale oscillation of temperature variation are the most prominent. (2) It has been noticed that whether on century-scale or 60-year scales, the global temperature tends to descend in the coming 20 years. (3) On quasi 60-year timescale, temperature abrupt changes in China precede those in the global and NH, which provides a denotation for global climate changes. Signs also show a drop in temperature in China on century scale in the next 20 years. (4) The dominant contribution of CO₂ concentration to global temperature variation is the trend. However, its influence weight on global temperature variation accounts for no more than 40.19%, smaller than those of the natural climate changes on the rest four timescales. Despite the increasing trend in atmospheric CO₂ concentration, the patterns of 20-year and 60-year oscillation of global temperature are all in falling. Therefore, if CO₂ concentration remains constant at present, the CO₂ greenhouse effect will be deficient in counterchecking the natural cooling of global climate in the following 20 years. Even though the CO₂ greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated. It is high time to re-consider the trend of global climate changes.     

Asymmetries in tropical rainfall and circulation patterns in idealised CO2 removal experiments

Atmospheric CO₂ removal is currently receiving serious consideration as a supplement or even alternative to emissions reduction. However the possible consequences of such a strategy for the climate system, and particularly for regional changes to the hydrological cycle, are not well understood. Two idealised general circulation model experiments are described, where CO₂ concentrations are steadily increased, then decreased along the same path. Global mean precipitation continues to increase for several decades after CO₂ begins to decrease. The mean tropical circulation shows associated changes due to the constraint on the global circulation imposed by precipitation and water vapour. The patterns of precipitation and circulation change also exhibit asymmetries with regard to changes in both CO₂ and global mean temperature, but while the lag in global precipitation can be ascribed to different levels of CO₂ at the same temperature state, the regional changes cannot. Instead, ocean memory and heat transfer are important here. In particular the equatorial East Pacific continues to warm relative to the West Pacific during CO₂ ramp-down, producing an anomalously large equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature gradient and associated rainfall anomalies. The mechanism is likely to be a lag in response to atmospheric forcing between mixed-layer water in the east Pacific and the sub-thermocline water below, due to transport through the ocean circulation. The implication of this study is that a CO₂ pathway of increasing then decreasing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations may lead us to climate states during CO₂ decrease that have not been experienced during the increase.     

Respiration of Recently-Fixed Plant Carbon Dominates Mid-Winter Ecosystem CO2 Production in Sub-Arctic Heath Tundra

Arctic ecosystems could provide a substantial positive feedback to global climate change if warming stimulates below-ground CO₂ release by enhancing decomposition of bulk soil organic matter reserves.Ecosystem respiration during winter is important in this context because CO₂ release from snow-covered tundra soils is a substantial component of annual net carbon (C) balance, and because global climate models predict that the most rapid rises in regional air temperature will occur in the Arctic during winter. In this manipulative field study, the relative contributions of plant and bulk soil organic matter C pools to ecosystem CO₂ production in mid-winter were investigated. We measured CO₂ efflux rates in Swedish sub-arctic heath tundra from control plots and from plots that had been clipped in the previous growing season to disrupt plant activity. Respiration derived from recently-fixed plant C (i.e., plant respiration, and respiration associated with rhizosphere exudates and decomposition of fresh litter) was the principal source of CO₂ efflux, while respiration associated with decomposition of bulk soil organic matter was low, and appeared relatively insensitive to temperature. These results suggest that warmer mid-winter temperatures in the Arctic may have a much greater impact on the cycling of recently-fixed, plant-associated C pools than on the depletion of tundra bulk soil C reserves, and consequently that there is a low potential for significant initial feedbacks from arctic ecosystems to climate change during mid-winter.     

On the use of Granger causality to investigate the human influence on climate

Summary A paper recently published in “Nature” finds that there is sufficient evidence to identify the effects of human activity on global temperature. The study is based on northern and southern hemispheres’ time series temperature from 1865 to 1994 and the econometric technique applied is Granger causality analysis. In this note, we make some critical remarks on the conclusions of this study which seem to be rather inconsistent from a methodological point of view. It is shown that a more accurate application of Granger causality analysis to this problem may not allow the same strong and unambiguous conclusions. Received December 22, 2000/Revised April 23, 2001     

Greenhouse warming or Little Ice Age demise: A critical problem for climatology

A comparative analysis of long-term (several-hundred-year) temperature and carbon dioxide (CO₂) trends suggests that the global warming of the past century is not due to the widely accepted CO₂ greenhouse effect but rather to the natural recovery of the Earth from the global chill of the Little Ice Age, which was both initiated and ended by some unrelated phenomenon, the latter expression of which is the very warming generally attributed to the CO₂ increase of the past century.Notes     

Characterizing the annual-mean climatic effect of anthropogenic CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> and aerosol emissions in eight coupled atmosphere-ocean GCMs

This work examines the spatial patterns of the transient response of mean annual temperature and precipitation to CO₂ (or CO₂ plus aerosol or aerosol proxy) radiative forcing in eight coupled AOGCMs, generally for the period 1900–2099. Response patterns are characterized using empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) and the quasi-EOFs of Harvey and Wigley (the first qEOF field, discussed here, is given by the correlation between local year-by-year temperature changes and the global mean temperature change). The first temperature EOF accounts for 80–95% of the space-time variation of the CO₂ run in all of the models, and is almost identical to qEOF₁ of the temperature response or to the temperature change pattern averaged over the last 30 years of the simulations. EOF₁ accounts for 80–95% of the space-time variation in the CO₂+aerosol runs in six of the eight models. The CO₂ response patterns of different models are highly correlated with one another (R ² generally >0.5), and are also highly correlated with the CO₂+aerosol response patterns (R ² 0.85 in all except one model). The difference between CO₂ and CO₂+aerosol runs can be represented by EOF₁ of the year-by-year differences, by qEOF₁ of the year-by-year differences, or by the difference in temperature averaged over the last 30 years of each run. In models where these representations are highly correlated with each other, they are also highly correlated with CO₂ EOF₁. In other cases, aerosol EOF₁ is modestly to highly correlated with control EOF₁ (i.e.: the year-by-year differences between CO₂ and CO₂+aerosol runs are dominated by internal variability), while aerosol qEOF₁ and the 30-year difference are highly correlated with each other. For all models, the decadal mean temperature change can be closely replicated by scaling the CO₂ EOF₁ pattern based on the global mean temperature changes (RMSE for the last decade is <6% of the RMS temperature change for CO₂ runs, <8% for CO₂+aerosol runs). The first EOF of the precipitation response to increasing CO₂ accounts for only 10–30% of the space-time variation, and is generally highly correlated (R ² up to 0.85) with control EOF₁. In all of the models, there is an increase in precipitation in the ITCZ and a decrease in bands at or near 30°S and 30°N. In many models there is an El Niño-like response, including a substantial decrease in precipitation over the Amazon. Global-mean precipitation increases in all models due to CO₂ forcing, but aerosols appear to have a disproportionally large effect in suppressing the increase compared to their effect in suppressing the warming. There is evidence in some models that the non-absorbing aerosols considered here reduce summer monsoon rainfall compared to the changes that would be expected based on the globally averaged effect of aerosols on precipitation. When regional precipitation changes over time are predicted by scaling a fixed precipitation-change pattern with the global mean temperature change, the global mean RMSE in the predicted change in decadal-mean precipitation is 25–35% of the global RMS precipitation changes by the end of the simulation.     

Quality of geological CO2 storage to avoid jeopardizing climate targets

We explore allowable leakage for carbon capture and geological storage to be consistent with maximum global warming targets of 2.5 and 3 °C by 2100. Given plausible fossil fuel use and carbon capture and storage scenarios, and based on modeling of time-dependent leakage of CO₂, we employ a climate model to calculate the long-term temperature response of CO₂ emissions. We assume that half of the stored CO₂ is permanently trapped by fast mechanisms. If 40?% of global CO₂ emissions are stored in the second half of this century, the temperature effect of escaped CO₂ is too small to compromise a 2.5 °C target. If 80?% of CO₂ is captured, escaped CO₂ must peak 300?years or later for consistency with this climate target. Due to much more CO₂ stored for the 3 than the 2.5 °C target, quality of storage becomes more important. Thus for the 3 °C target escaped CO₂ must peak 400?years or later in the 40?% scenario, and 3000?years or later in the 80?% scenario. Consequently CO₂ escaped from geological storage can compromise the less stringent 3 °C target in the long-run if most of global CO₂ emissions have been stored. If less CO₂ is stored only a very high escape scenario can compromise the more stringent 2.5 °C target. For the two remaining combinations of storage scenarios and climate targets, leakage must be high to compromise these climate targets.     

Economic impacts of alternative greenhouse gas emission metrics: a model-based assessment

In this paper we study the impact of alternative metrics on short- and long-term multi-gas emission reduction strategies and the associated global and regional economic costs and emissions budgets. We compare global warming potentials with three different time horizons (20, 100, 500 years), global temperature change potential and global cost potentials with and without temperature overshoot. We find that the choice of metric has a relatively small impact on the CO₂ budget compatible with the 2° target and therefore on global costs. However it substantially influences mid-term emission levels of CH₄, which may either rise or decline in the next decades as compared to today’s levels. Though CO₂ budgets are not affected much, we find changes in CO₂ prices which substantially affect regional costs. Lower CO₂ prices lead to more fossil fuel use and therefore higher resource prices on the global market. This increases profits of fossil-fuel exporters. Due to the different weights of non-CO₂ emissions associated with different metrics, there are large differences in nominal CO₂ equivalent budgets, which do not necessarily imply large differences in the budgets of the single gases. This may induce large shifts in emission permit trade, especially in regions where agriculture with its high associated CH₄ emissions plays an important role. Furthermore it makes it important to determine CO₂ equivalence budgets with respect to the chosen metric. Our results suggest that for limiting warming to 2 °C in 2100, the currently used GWP100 performs well in terms of global mitigation costs despite its conceptual simplicity.     

An estimate of equilibrium sensitivity of global terrestrial carbon cycle using NCAR CCSM4

Increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ influence climate, terrestrial biosphere productivity and ecosystem carbon storage through its radiative, physiological and fertilization effects. In this paper, we quantify these effects for a doubling of CO₂ using a low resolution configuration of the coupled model NCAR CCSM4. In contrast to previous coupled climate-carbon modeling studies, we focus on the near-equilibrium response of the terrestrial carbon cycle. For a doubling of CO₂, the radiative effect on the physical climate system causes global mean surface air temperature to increase by 2.14 K, whereas the physiological and fertilization on the land biosphere effects cause a warming of 0.22 K, suggesting that these later effects increase global warming by about 10 % as found in many recent studies. The CO₂-fertilization leads to total ecosystem carbon gain of 371 Gt-C (28 %) while the radiative effect causes a loss of 131 Gt-C (~10 %) indicating that climate warming damps the fertilization-induced carbon uptake over land. Our model-based estimate for the maximum potential terrestrial carbon uptake resulting from a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ concentration (285–570 ppm) is only 242 Gt-C. This highlights the limited storage capacity of the terrestrial carbon reservoir. We also find that the terrestrial carbon storage sensitivity to changes in CO₂ and temperature have been estimated to be lower in previous transient simulations because of lags in the climate-carbon system. Our model simulations indicate that the time scale of terrestrial carbon cycle response is greater than 500 years for CO₂-fertilization and about 200 years for temperature perturbations. We also find that dynamic changes in vegetation amplify the terrestrial carbon storage sensitivity relative to a static vegetation case: because of changes in tree cover, changes in total ecosystem carbon for CO₂-direct and climate effects are amplified by 88 and 72 %, respectively, in simulations with dynamic vegetation when compared to static vegetation simulations.     

The carbon dioxide/climate controversy: Some personal comments on two recent publications

The pervasive opinion on the relationship between the state of the climate and the increasing concentration of CO₂ is that a general global warming will occur with social, economical and environmental corollaries that may be adverse. However, there exist a number of dissenting arguments that call for a much smaller increase in global temperature or even an induced global cooling. Furthermore, the positive biological effects of a greater atmospheric CO₂ loading are emphasized.The difference of opinion is highlighted in two recent publications: CO ₂, Friend or Foe by Sherwood Idso and Carbon Dioxide: A Second Assessment by the National Academy of Science CO₂/Climate Review Committee. Using the two publications as focal points, some personal remarks are made regarding the controversy and the relative merits of the scientific arguments.     

Estimates of the Climate Response to Aircraft CO2 and NO x Emissions Scenarios

A combination of linear response models is used to estimate the transient changes in the global means of carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration, surface temperature, and sea level due to aviation. Apart from CO₂, the forcing caused by ozone (O₃) changes due to nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions from aircraft is also considered. The model is applied to aviation using several CO₂ emissions scenarios, based on reported fuel consumption in the past and scenarios for the future, and corresponding NO_x emissions. Aviation CO₂ emissions from the past until 1995 enlarged the atmospheric CO₂ concentration by 1.4 ppmv (1.7% of the anthropogenic CO₂ increase since 1800). By 1995, the global mean surface temperature had increased by about 0.004 K, and the sea level had risen by 0.045 cm. In one scenario (Fa1), which assumes a threefold increase in aviation fuel consumption until 2050 and an annual increase rate of 1% thereafter until 2100, the model predicts a CO₂ concentration change of 13 ppmv by 2100, causing temperature increases of 0.01, 0.025, 0.05 K and sea level increases of 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 cm in the years 2015, 2050, and 2100, respectively. For other recently published scenarios, the results range from 5 to 17 ppmv for CO₂ concentration increase in the year 2050, and 0.02 to 0.05 K for temperature increase. Under the assumption that present-day aircraft-induced O₃ changes cause an equilibrium surface warming of 0.05 K, the transient responses amount to 0.03 K in surface temperature for scenario Fa1 in 1995. The radiative forcing due to an aircraft-induced O₃ increase causes a larger temperature change than aircraft CO₂ forcing. Also, climate reacts more promptly to changes in O₃ than to changes in CO₂ emissions from aviation. Finally, even under the assumption of a rather small equilibrium temperature change from aircraft-induced O₃ (0.01 K for the 1992 NO_x emissions), a proposed new combustor technology which reduces specific NO_x emissions will cause a smaller temperature change during the next century than the standard technology does, despite a slightly enhanced fuel consumption. Regional effects are not considered here, but may be larger than the global mean responses.     

Transient response to well-mixed greenhouse gas changes

A change in CO₂ concentration induces a direct radiative forcing that modifies the planetary thermodynamic state, and hence the surface temperature. The infrared cooling, by assuming a constant temperature lapse-rate during the process, will be related to the surface temperature through the Stefan–Boltzmann law in a ratio proportional to the new infrared opacity. Other indirect effects, such as the water vapor and ice-albedo feedbacks, may amplify the system response. In the present paper, we address the question of how a global climate model with a mixed layer ocean responds to different rates of change of a well-mixed greenhouse gas such as CO₂. We provide evidence that different rates of CO₂ variation may lead to similar transient climates characterized by the same global mean surface temperature but different values of CO₂ concentration. Moreover, it is shown that, far from the bifurcation points, the model’s climate depends on the history of the radiative forcing displaying a hysteresis cycle that is neither static nor dynamical, but is related to the memory response of the model. Results are supported by the solutions of a zero-dimensional energy balance model.     

Magnitude of ocean temperature feedback effects in a coupled carbon-budget energy-balance model for the period 1800–2100

The ocean-atmosphere CO₂ flux in an existing model is reformulated as a function of both surface temperature (SST) and carbon content. The CO₂ model is run in tandem with an energy balance model whose infrared flux to space is modulated by atmospheric CO₂ concentration. Global (averaged over latitude and longitude) temperature values obtained from the tandem model are very similar to those produced by simple logarithmic scaling of CO₂ concentrations. Simulations indicate the effect of SST feedback is slight, on both a seasonal and long-term basis. It is concluded that there is little advantage to running global CO₂ models, as they are presently configured, in tandem with climate models.Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-ENG-48.     

Climatic variability within an equilibrium greenhouse simulation

A simulation of the possible consequences of a doubling of the CO₂ content of the atmosphere has been performed with a low resolution global climatic model. The model included the diurnal and seasonal cycles, computed sea ice amount and cloud cover, and used implied oceanic heat fluxes to represent transport processes in the oceans. A highly responsive 2-layer soil moisture formulation was also incorporated. Twenty year equilibrated simulations for control (1 × CO₂) and greenhouse (2 × CO₂) conditions were generated. The major emphasis of the analysis presented here is on the intra-annual and interannual variability of the greenhouse run with respect to the control run. This revealed considerable differences from the time-averaged results with occasions of marked positive and negative temperature deviations. Of particular interest were the periods of negative temperature departures compared to the control run which were identified, especially over the Northern Hemisphere continents. Temporal and spatial precipitation and soil moisture anomalies also occurred, some of which were related to the surface temperature changes. Substantial sea surface temperature anomalies were apparent in the greenhouse run, indicating that a source of climatic forcing existed in addition to that due to doubling of the CO₂. Comparison of the intra-annual and interannual variability of the control run with that of the greenhouse run suggests that, in many situations, it will be difficult to identify a greenhouse signal against the intrinsic natural variability of the climatic system.     

Managing atmospheric CO2

A coupled carbon cycle-climate model is used to compute global atmospheric CO₂ and temperature variation that would result from several future CO₂ emission scenarios. The model includes temperature and CO₂ feedbacks on the terrestrial biosphere, and temperature feedback on the oceanic uptake of CO₂. The scenarios used include cases in which fossil fuel CO₂ emissions are held constant at the 1986 value or increase by 1% yr^–1 until either 2000 or 2020, followed by a gradual transition to a rate of decrease of 1 or 2% yr^–1. The climatic effect of increases in non-CO₂ trace gases is included, and scenarios are considered in which these gases increase until 2075 or are stabilized once CO₂ emission reductions begin. Low and high deforestation scenarios are also considered. In all cases, results are computed for equilibrium climatic sensitivities to CO₂ doubling of 2.0 and 4.0 °C.Peak atmospheric CO₂ concentrations of 400–500 ppmv and global mean warming after 1980 of 0.6–3.2 °C occur, with maximum rates of global mean warming of 0.2–0.3 °C decade^–1. The peak CO₂ concentrations in these scenarios are significantly below that commonly regarded as unavoidable; further sensitivity analyses suggest that limiting atmospheric CO₂ to as little as 400 ppmv is a credible option.Two factors in the model are important in limiting atmospheric CO₂: (1) the airborne fraction falls rapidly once emissions begin to decrease, so that total emissions (fossil fuel + land use-induced) need initially fall to only about half their present value in order to stabilize atmospheric CO₂, and (2) changes in rates of deforestation have an immediate and proportional effect on gross emissions from the biosphere, whereas the CO₂ sink due to regrowth of forests responds more slowly, so that decreases in the rate of deforestation have a disproportionately large effect on net emission.If fossil fuel emissions were to decrease at 1–2% yr^–1 beginning early in the next century, emissions could decrease to the rate of CO₂ uptake by the predominantly oceanic sink within 50–100 yrs. Simulation results suggest that if subsequent emission reductions were tied to the rate of CO₂ uptake by natural CO₂ sinks, these reductions could proceed more slowly than initially while preventing further CO₂ increases, since the natural CO₂ sink strength decreases on time scales of one to several centuries. The model used here does not account for the possible effect on atmospheric CO₂ concentration of possible changes in oceanic circulation. Based on past rates of atmospheric CO₂ variation determined from polar ice cores, it appears that the largest plausible perturbation in ocean-air CO₂ flux due to changes of oceanic circulation is substantially smaller than the permitted fossil fuel CO₂ emissions under the above strategy, so tieing fossil fuel emissions to the total sink strength could provide adequate flexibility for responding to unexpected changes in oceanic CO₂ uptake caused by climatic warming-induced changes of oceanic circulation.     

Is Granger causality analysis appropriate to investigate the relationship between atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and global surface air temperature?

Summary Many time series based studies use Granger causality analysis in order to investigate the connection between atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations and global mean temperature. This note re-examines the causal relationship between these variables and shows the inappropriateness of the Granger test to the problem under investigation.