Accounting for internal variability

NASA continues to study the extent of future warming in climate change scenarios, including Earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), or the eventual warming response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Estimates of ECS based on recent observations are lower than model estimates, suggesting that model estimates may be wrong. However, when models are constrained with observed recent sea surface temperatures, their ECS estimates are also lower than the unconstrained model estimates. This suggests that the natural variability of the Earth system may be confounding estimates of ECS based on recent observations.

Data Sources: Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5)

ECS - 1.png
Marvel, K., R. Pincus, G. A. Schmidt, and R. L. Miller, Internal Variability and Disequilibrium Confound Estimates of Climate Sensitivity from Observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 45, 1595 – 1601, 2018

Publications

Marvel, K., R. Pincus, G. A. Schmidt, and R. L. Miller, Internal Variability and Disequilibrium Confound Estimates of Climate Sensitivity from Observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 45, 1595 – 1601, 2018

< Previous Discovery | Next Discovery >

< Back to: A Year in Review

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

James Webb Space Telescope

The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which have a blue or orange hue. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image suggest the presence of a large star just out of view.

Perseverance Rover

Parker Solar Probe

Juno