An examination of climate sensitivity for idealised climate change experiments in an intermediate general circulation model

Radiative forcing and climate sensitivity have been widely used as concepts to understand climate change. This work performs climate change experiments with an intermediate general circulation model (IGCM) to examine the robustness of the radiative forcing concept for carbon dioxide and solar constant changes. This IGCM has been specifically developed as a computationally fast model, but one that allows an interaction between physical processes and large-scale dynamics; the model allows many long integrations to be performed relatively quickly. It employs a fast and accurate radiative transfer scheme, as well as simple convection and surface schemes, and a slab ocean, to model the effects of climate change mechanisms on the atmospheric temperatures and dynamics with a reasonable degree of complexity. The climatology of the IGCM run at T-21 resolution with 22 levels is compared to European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting Reanalysis data. The response of the model to changes in carbon dioxide and solar output are examined when these changes are applied globally and when constrained geographically (e.g. over land only). The CO₂ experiments have a roughly 17% higher climate sensitivity than the solar experiments. It is also found that a forcing at high latitudes causes a 40% higher climate sensitivity than a forcing only applied at low latitudes. It is found that, despite differences in the model feedbacks, climate sensitivity is roughly constant over a range of distributions of CO₂ and solar forcings. Hence, in the IGCM at least, the radiative forcing concept is capable of predicting global surface temperature changes to within 30%, for the perturbations described here. It is concluded that radiative forcing remains a useful tool for assessing the natural and anthropogenic impact of climate change mechanisms on surface temperature.     

Sensitivity of transient eddies to climate change in the CCC general circulation model

Abstract

We use eddy life‐cycle simulations to evaluate the response of atmospheric transient eddies to a global warming caused by CO₂ doubling in the CCC general circulation model. In simulations using Northern Hemisphere winter conditions, transient waves attain larger kinetic energy and encompass a wider range of latitudes in the warmer climate. This behaviour contrasts with a previous investigation that used output from the NCAR and GFDL models. Our analysis indicates two primary factors for the difference between model responses: (1) a smaller change in the mid‐latitude temperature gradient in the CCC model, which allows (2) increased atmospheric water vapour in mid‐latitudes to catalyze a more rapidly evolving life‐cycle.     

Non-linear climate feedback analysis in an atmospheric general circulation model

 A method is described for evaluating the ‘partial derivatives’ of globally averaged top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation changes with respect to basic climate model physical parameters. This method is used to analyse feedbacks in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre general circulation model. The parameters considered are surface temperature, water vapour, lapse rate and cloud cover. The climate forcing which produces the changes is a globally uniform sea surface temperature (SST) perturbation. The first and second order differentials of model parameters with respect to the forcing (i.e. SST changes) are estimated from quadratic least square fitting. Except for total cloud cover, variables are found to be strong functions of global SST. Strongly non-linear variations of lapse rate and high cloud amount and height appear to relate to the non-linear response in penetrative convection. Globally averaged TOA radiation differentials with respect to model parameters are also evaluated. With the exception of total cloud contributions, a high correlation is generally found to exist, on the global mean level, between TOA radiation and the respective parameter perturbations. The largest non-linear terms contributing to radiative changes are those due to lapse rate and high cloud. The contributions of linear and non-linear terms to the overall radiative response from a 4 K SST perturbation are assessed. Significant non-linear responses are found to be associated with lapse rate, water vapour and cloud changes. Although the exact magnitude of these responses is likely to be a function of the particular model as well as the imposed SST perturbation pattern, the present experiments flag these as processes which cannot properly be understood from linear theory in the evaluation of climate change sensitivity. Received: 16 January 1997/Accepted: 9 May 1997     

Simulation of climate change over Europe using a global variable resolution general circulation model

 This study presents results from a downscaling simulation of the impact of a doubling of CO₂ concentration. A multidecadal coupled simulation of a 1% per year increase of CO₂ concentration with the Hadley Centre ocean-atmosphere model provides its sea-surface temperatures and deep soil climatological temperatures as a boundary condition to two 10-year integrations with a version of the ARPEGE-IFS atmosphere model. This global spectral model has a horizontal resolution varying between 60 km in the Mediterranean Sea and 700 km in the southern Pacific. The global impact as well as the regional impact over Europe in this time slice are examined and compared with results from other studies. Over Europe, our main focus, the model impact consists of a warming of about 2 ^°C, relatively uniform and with little seasonal dependence. There are precipitation increases of about 10% over the northern part in winter and spring, and 30% over the southern part in winter only. Precipitation decreases by 20% in the southern part in autumn. The day-to-day variability of the precipitation increases, except over the southern area in summer. No strong impact is found on the soil moisture. Budgets of physical fluxes are examined at the top of the atmosphere and at the land-atmosphere interface. Received: 26 February 1997/Accepted: 21 October 1997     

The change of North China climate in transient simulations using the IPCC SRES A2 and B2 scenarios with a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model

This paper applies the newest emission scenarios of the sulfur and greenhouse gases, namely IPCC SRES A2 and B2 scenarios, to investigate the change of the North China climate with an atmosphere-ocean coupled general circulation model. In the last three decades of the 21st century, the global warming enlarges the land-sea thermal contrast, and hence, causes the East Asian summer (winter) monsoon circulation to be strengthened (weakened). The rainfall seasonality strengthens and the summer precipitation increases significantly in North China. It is suggested that the East Asian rainy area would expand northward to North China in the last three decades of the 21st century. In addition, the North China precipitation would increase significantly in September. In July, August, and September, the interannual variability of the precipitation enlarges evidentlv over North China. implying a risk of flooding in the future.     

Simulated climate change during the last 1,000 years: comparing the ECHO-G general circulation model with the MAGICC simple climate model

An intercomparison of eight climate simulations, each driven with estimated natural and anthropogenic forcings for the last millennium, indicates that the so-called “Erik” simulation of the ECHO-G coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model exhibits atypical behaviour. The ECHO-G simulation has a much stronger cooling trend from 1000 to 1700 and a higher rate of warming since 1800 than the other simulations, with the result that the overall amplitude of millennial-scale temperature variations in the ECHO-G simulation is much greater than in the other models. The MAGICC (Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas-Induced Climate Change) simple climate model is used to investigate possible causes of this atypical behaviour. It is shown that disequilibrium in the initial conditions probably contributes spuriously to the cooling trend in the early centuries of the simulation, and that the omission of tropospheric sulphate aerosol forcing is the likely explanation for the anomalously large recent warming. The simple climate model results are used to adjust the ECHO-G Erik simulation to mitigate these effects, which brings the simulation into better agreement with the other seven models considered here and greatly reduces the overall range of temperature variations during the last millennium simulated by ECHO-G. Smaller inter-model differences remain which can probably be explained by a combination of the particular forcing histories and model sensitivities of each experiment. These have not been investigated here, though we have diagnosed the effective climate sensitivity of ECHO-G to be 2.39±0.11 K for a doubling of CO₂.     

An improvement of analog model strategy for more reliable local climate change scenarios

Summary Downscaled results derived using a linear regression model are compared with corresponding analysis based on an analog model, and the effect of systematic biases in climate models is examined. Here, a correction of the biases in the climate model is achieved using a common principal component analysis basis and by adjusting the part of the principal components corresponding to the control period. The results suggests that the downscaled results have a distribution more similar to the observations if the systematic biases are corrected for. The analog model can utilise weighted as well as unweighted principal components as input, and the effect of this choice was ex-amined. The results suggest that the weighted principal components yield more realistic results than the unweighted ones.Analog models are by definition incapable of making extrapolations outside the range of observed values whereas a linear model is well-suited for extrapolation. A combined approach involves superimposing a linear trend from the regression-based model onto the results of the analog model. It is theoretically possible for the combined method to make projections with a realistic level of variance as well as higher values than in the calibration data sample. A comparison between the linear, analog, and the combined strategies suggest that the linear model not always give the strongest trend, but also that the combined method may shift the analog-derived distribution towards higher values.     

A co-evolutionary approach to climate change impact assessment: Part I. Integrating socio-economic and climate change scenarios

Climate change policies currently pay disproportionately greater attention to the mitigation of climate change through emission reductions strategies than to adaptation measures. Realising that the world is already committed to some global warming, policy makers are beginning to turn their attention to the challenge of preparing society to adapt to the unfolding impacts at the local level. This two-part article presents an integrated, or `co-evolutionary', approach to using scenarios in adaptation and vulnerability assessment. Part I explains how climate and social scenarios can be integrated to better understand the inter-relationships between a changing climate and the dynamic evolution of social, economic and political systems. The integrated scenarios are then calibrated so that they can be applied `bottom up’ to local stakeholders in vulnerable sectors of the economy. Part I concludes that a co-evolutionary approach (1) produces a more sophisticated and dynamic account of the potential feedbacks between natural and human systems; (2) suggests that sustainability indicators are both a potentially valuable input to and an output of integrated scenario formulation and application. Part II describes how a broadly representative sample of public, private and voluntary organisations in the East Anglian region of the UK responded to the scenarios, and identifies future research priorities.     

Sensitivity of terrestrial carbon storage to CO2-induced climate change: Comparison of four scenarios based on general circulation models

The potential impacts of CO₂-induced climate change on terrestrial carbon storage was estimated using the Holdridge Life-Zone Classification and four climate change scenarios derived from general circulation models. Carbon values were assigned to life-zones and their associated soils from published studies. All four scenarios suggest an increase in area occupied by forests although details of predicted patterns vary among the scenarios. There is a poleward shift of the forested zones, with an increase in the areal extent of tropical forests and a shift of the boreal forest zone into the region currently occupied by tundra. Terrestrial carbon storage increased from 0.4% (8.5 Gt) to 9.5% (180.5 Gt) above estimates for present conditions. These changes represent a potential reduction of 4 to 85 ppm on elevated atmospheric CO₂ levels.     

Decadal climate variability simulated in a coupled general circulation model

A 1000 year integration of the CSIRO coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model is used to study low frequency (decadal to centennial) climate variability in precipitation and temperature. The model is shown to exhibit sizeable decadal variability for these fields, generally accounting for approximately 20 to 40% of the variability (greater than one year) in precipitation and up to 80% for temperature. An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is applied to the model output to show some of the major statistical modes of low frequency variability. The first EOF spatial pattern looks very much like that of the interannual ENSO pattern. It bears considerable resemblance to observational estimates and is centred in the Pacific extending into both hemispheres. It modulates both precipitation and temperature globally. The EOF has a time evolution that appears to be more than just red noise. Finally, the link between SST in the Pacific with Australian rainfall variability seen in observations is also evident in the model. Received: 29 August 1998 / Accepted: 31 July 1999     

Frequency distributions of transient regional climate change from perturbed physics ensembles of general circulation model simulations

Large ensembles of coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) simulations are required to explore modelling uncertainty and make probabilistic predictions of future transient climate change at regional scales. These are not yet computationally feasible so we have developed a technique to emulate the response of such an ensemble by scaling equilibrium patterns of climate change derived from much cheaper “slab” model ensembles in which the atmospheric component of an AOGCM is coupled to a mixed-layer ocean. Climate feedback parameters are diagnosed for each member of a slab model ensemble and used to drive an energy balance model (EBM) to predict the time-dependent response of global surface temperature expected for different combinations of uncertain AOGCM parameters affecting atmospheric, land and sea-ice processes. The EBM projections are then used to scale normalised patterns of change derived for each slab member, and hence emulate the response of the relevant atmospheric model version when coupled to a dynamic ocean, in response to a 1% per annum increase in CO₂. The emulated responses are validated by comparison with predictions from a 17 member ensemble of AOGCM simulations, constructed from variants of HadCM3 using the same parameter combinations as 17 members of the slab model ensemble. Cross-validation permits estimation of the spatial and temporal dependence of emulation error, and also allows estimation of a correction field to correct discrepancies between the scaled equilibrium patterns and the transient response, reducing the emulation error. Emulated transient responses and their associated errors are obtained from the slab ensemble for 129 pseudo-HadCM3 versions containing multiple atmospheric parameter perturbations. These are combined to produce regional frequency distributions for the transient response of annual surface temperature change and boreal winter precipitation change. The technique can be extended to any surface climate variable demonstrating a scaleable, approximately linear response to forcing.     

Interdecadal variability of regional climate change: implications for the development of regional climate change scenarios

Summary Illustrative examples are discussed of the interdecadal variability features of the regional climate change signal in 5 AOGCM transient simulations. It is shown that the regional precipitation change signal is characterized by large variability at decadal to multidecadal scales, with the structure of the variability varying markedly across regions. Conversely, the regional temperature change signal shows low interdecadal variability. Results are compared across scenarios, models and different realizations with the same model. Our analysis indicates that, at the decadal scale, linear scaling of the regional climate change signal by the global temperature change works relatively well for temperature but less so for precipitation. The nonlinear fraction of the climate change signal tends to decrease with the magnitude of the signal. The implications of interdecadal variability for the generation of regional climate change scenarios are discussed, in particular concerning the use of multi-experiment ensembles to produce such scenarios.     

Ocean-atmosphere interactions and climate drift in a coupled general circulation model

 We have analysed numerical simulations performed with a global 3D coupled atmosphere-ocean model to focus on the role of atmospheric processes leading to sea surface temperature (SST) drift in the tropics. Negative SST errors occur coherently in space and time with large positive errors in latent heat and momentum fluxes at the tropical air-sea interface, as diagnosed from forced SST simulations. The warm pool in the western Pacific disappears after a few years of simulation. Strong SST gradients enforce regions of high precipitation that are thin and stationary north of the equator. We detail the implications for the ocean-atmosphere system of such upheaval in the deep convection location. A sensitivity experiment to empirically formulate air-sea drag coefficient shows that the rapid warm pool erosion is not sensitive to changes in the formulation of the surface drag coefficient over the oceans because the corresponding changes in turbulent heat fluxes and LW cooling approximately cancel one another. In the eastern Pacific, the improvement in SST is striking and caused by feedbacks between SST, surface turbulent fluxes and boundary layer cloud fraction, which decreases as SST warms. Received: 8 December 1998 / Accepted: 6 January 2000     

Future climate of the Caribbean from a super-high-resolution atmospheric general circulation model

Present-day (1979–2003) and future (2075–2099) simulations of mean and extreme rainfall and temperature are examined using data from the Meteorological Research Institute super-high-resolution atmospheric general circulation model. Analyses are performed over the 20-km model grid for (1) a main Caribbean basin, (2) sub-regional zones, and (3) specific Caribbean islands. Though the model’s topography underestimates heights over the eastern Caribbean, it captures well the present-day spatial and temporal variations of seasonal and annual climates. Temperature underestimations range from 0.1 °C to 2 °C with respect to the Japanese Reanalysis and the Climatic Research Unit datasets. The model also captures fairly well sub-regional scale variations in the rainfall climatology. End-of-century projections under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change SRES A1B scenario indicate declines in rainfall amounts by 10–20 % for most of the Caribbean during the early (May–July) and late (August–October) rainy seasons relative to the 1979–2003 baselines. The early dry season (November–January) is also projected to get wetter in the far north and south Caribbean by approximately 10 %. The model also projects a warming of 2–3 °C over the Caribbean region. Analysis of future climate extremes indicate a 5–10 % decrease in the simple daily precipitation intensity but no significant change in the number of consecutive dry days for Cuba, Jamaica, southern Bahamas, and Haiti. There is also indication that the number of hot days and nights will significantly increase over the main Caribbean basin.     

A method for incorporating climate variability in climate change impact assessments: Sensitivity of river flows in the Eden catchment to precipitation scenarios

Interest in the impacts of climate change is ever increasing. This is particularly true of the water sector where understanding potential changes in the occurrence of both floods and droughts is important for strategic planning. Climate variability has been shown to have a significant impact on UK climate and accounting for this in future climate change projections is essential to fully anticipate potential future impacts. In this paper a new resampling methodology is developed which includes the variability of both baseline and future precipitation. The resampling methodology is applied to 13 CMIP3 climate models for the 2080s, resulting in an ensemble of monthly precipitation change factors. The change factors are applied to the Eden catchment in eastern Scotland with analysis undertaken for the sensitivity of future river flows to the changes in precipitation. Climate variability is shown to influence the magnitude and direction of change of both precipitation and in turn river flow, which are not apparent without the use of the resampling methodology. The transformation of precipitation changes to river flow changes display a degree of non-linearity due to the catchment’s role in buffering the response. The resampling methodology developed in this paper provides a new technique for creating climate change scenarios which incorporate the important issue of climate variability.