Long-term climate change commitment and reversibility: An EMIC Intercomparison

Zickfeld, Kirsten; Eby, Michael; Weaver, Andrew J.; Alexander, Kaitlin; Crespin, Elisabeth; Edwards, Neil R.; Eliseev, Alexey V.; Feulner, Georg; Fichefet, Thierry; Forest, Chris E.; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Goosse, Hugues; Holden, Philip B.; Joos, Fortunat; Kawamiya, Michio; Kicklighter, David; Kienert, Hendrik; Matsumoto, Katsumi; Mokhov, Igor I.; Monier, Erwan; ... (2013). Long-term climate change commitment and reversibility: An EMIC Intercomparison. Journal of Climate, 26(16), pp. 5782-5890. American Meteorological Society 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00584.1

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This paper summarizes the results of an intercomparison project with Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) undertaken in support of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The focus is on long-term climate projections designed to 1) quantify the climate change commitment of different radiative forcing trajectories and 2) explore the extent to which climate change is reversible on human time scales. All commitment simulations follow the four representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and their extensions to year 2300. Most EMICs simulate substantial surface air temperature and thermosteric sea level rise commitment following stabilization of the atmospheric composition at year-2300 levels. The meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is weakened temporarily and recovers to near-preindustrial values in most models for RCPs 2.6-6.0. The MOC weakening is more persistent for RCP8.5. Elimination of anthropogenic CO2 emissions after 2300 results in slowly decreasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. At year 3000 atmospheric CO2 is still at more than half its year-2300 level in all EMICs for RCPs 4.5-8.5. Surface air temperature remains constant or decreases slightly and thermosteric sea level rise continues for centuries after elimination of CO2 emissions in all EMICs. Restoration of atmospheric CO2 from RCP to preindustrial levels over 100-1000 years requires large artificial removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and does not result in the simultaneous return to preindustrial climate conditions, as surface air temperature and sea level response exhibit a substantial time lag relative to atmospheric CO2.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute > Climate and Environmental Physics
10 Strategic Research Centers > Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR)
08 Faculty of Science > Physics Institute

UniBE Contributor:

Joos, Fortunat, Spahni, Renato, Steinacher, Marco

Subjects:

500 Science > 530 Physics
500 Science > 550 Earth sciences & geology

ISSN:

0894-8755

Publisher:

American Meteorological Society

Language:

English

Submitter:

Doris Rätz

Date Deposited:

29 Sep 2014 14:44

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:31

Publisher DOI:

10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00584.1

Web of Science ID:

000322759700004

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.47710

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/47710

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