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UCD School of Mathematics and Statistics

Scoil na nEolaíochtaí Matamaitice UCD

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New paper from the School’s Meteorology and Climate Centre suggests low climate sensitivity (posted on 18/05/16)

A new paper “Estimating climate sensitivity using two-zone energy balance models” by Prof. Ray Bates, just published in the American Geophysical Union’s open-access journal Earth and Space Science

suggests that climate sensitivity (the equilibrium global warming to be expected from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide) lies below the 1.5°C - 4.5°C range estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2013 report. The global climate models providing the IPCC’s sensitivity estimates show top-of-atmosphere radiative responses to surface temperature variations that are in poor agreement with satellite observations over the tropical zone. By inserting the radiative responses observed by satellite directly into simple two-zone (tropical/extratropical) energy balance models and imposing a 2 x CO2 radiative forcing, the new paper derives independent estimates of climate sensitivity. The results indicate a narrow range of values lying in a close neighbourhood of 1°C.

Read full article here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015EA000154/epdf 

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