Transient and Quasi-Equilibrium Climate States at 1.5°C and 2°C Global Warming

AD King; AR Borowiak; JR Brown; DJ Frame; LJ Harrington; SK Min; A Pendergrass; M Rugenstein; JMK Sniderman; DA Stone

Journal article

Transient and Quasi-Equilibrium Climate States at 1.5°C and 2°C Global Warming

AD King, AR Borowiak, JR Brown, DJ Frame, LJ Harrington, SK Min, A Pendergrass, M Rugenstein, JMK Sniderman, DA Stone

Earth S Future | Published : 2021

DOI: 10.1029/2021EF002274

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Abstract

Recent climate change is characterized by rapid global warming, but the goal of the Paris Agreement is to achieve a stable climate where global temperatures remain well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Inferences about conditions at or below 2°C are usually made based on transient climate projections. To better understand climate change impacts on natural and human systems under the Paris Agreement, we must understand how a stable climate may differ from transient conditions at the same warming level. Here we examine differences between transient and quasi-equilibrium climates using a statistical framework applied to greenhouse gas-only model simulations. This allows us to infer climat..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Andrew King Author

Josephine Brown Author

Kale Sniderman Author

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Awarded by National Science Foundation

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank the editor for handling our manuscript and the reviewers for providing constructive feedback. A. D. King was supported by the Australian Research Council (DE180100638). D. J. Frame, L. J. Harrington, and D. A. Stone were supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of Aotearoa New Zealand through the Endeavour programme. S.-K. Min was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the South Korean government (MSIT) (NRF-2018R1A5A1024958 and NRF-2021R1A2C3007366). A. G. Pendergrass was supported by the Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) component of the Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Biological & Environmental Research (BER) via National Science Foundation IA 1947282. J. M. K. Sniderman was funded by Australian Research Council grant FL160100028 to Prof. Jon Woodhead. The authors acknowledge useful discussions with Ed Hawkins and Daniel Mitchell. We acknowledge the support of staff at the NCI facility in Australia and the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the data and providing access, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP6 and ESGF.