The Uncertainty in the Transient Climate Response to Cumulative CO₂ Emissions Arising from the Uncertainty in Physical Climate Parameters

• Published in: Journal of climate Vol. 30; no. 2; pp. 813 - 827
• Main Authors: Macdougall, Andrew H., Swart, Neil C., Knutti, Reto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston American Meteorological Society 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Atmosphere; Atmospheric models; Biogeochemistry; Budgets; Carbon; Carbon budget; Carbon cycle; Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations; Carbon dioxide concentration; Carbon dioxide emissions; Climate; Climate change; Climate models; Climate science; Construction; Earth; Efficiency; Emissions; Estimates; Experiments; Feedback; Fossil fuels; Heat; Intercomparison; Oil and gas production; Parameter uncertainty; Physics; Surface temperature; Temperature; Temperature effects; Uncertainty
• ISSN: 0894-8755; 1520-0442
• DOI: 10.1175/jcli-d-16-0205.1

An emergent property of most Earth system models is a near-linear relationship between cumulative emission of CO₂ and change in global near-surface temperature. This relationship, which has been named the transient climate response to cumulative CO₂ emissions (TCRE), implies a finite budget of fossil fuel carbon that can be burnt over all time consistent with a chosen temperature change target. Carbon budgets are inversely proportional to the value of TCRE and are therefore sensitive to the uncertainty in TCRE. Here the authors have used a perturbed physics approach with an Earth system model of intermediate complexity to assess the uncertainty in the TCRE that arises from uncertainty in the rate of transient temperature change and the effect of this uncertainty on carbon cycle feedbacks. The experiments are conducted using an idealized 1% yr−1 increase in CO₂ concentration. Additionally, the authors have emulated the temperature output of 23 models from phase 5 of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The experiment yields a mean value for TCRE of 1.72 K EgC−1 with a 5th to 95th percentile range of 0.88 to 2.52 K EgC−1. This range of uncertainty is consistent with the likely range from the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (0.8 to 2.5 K EgC−1) but by construction underestimates the total uncertainty range of TCRE, as the authors’ experiments cannot account for the uncertainty from their models’ imperfect representation of the global carbon cycle. Transient temperature change uncertainty induces a 5th to 95th percentile range in the airborne fraction at the time of doubled atmospheric CO₂ of 0.50 to 0.58. Overall the uncertainty in the value of TCRE remains considerable.