Making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity

E. J. Rohling (1, 2) , A. Sluijs (3) , H. A. Dijkstra (4) , P. Köhler (5) , R. S. W. van de Wal (4) , A. S. von Der Heydt (4) , D. J. Beerling (6) , A. Berger (7) , P. K. Bijl (3) , M. Crucifix (7) , R. Deconto (8) , S. S. Drijfhout (9) , A. Fedorov (10) , G. L. Foster (1) , A. Ganopolski (11) , J. Hansen (12) , B. Hönisch (13) , H. Hooghiemstra (14) , M. Huber (15) , P. Huybers (16) , R. Knutti (17) , D. W. Lea (18) , L. J. Lourens (3) , D. Lunt (19) , Valérie Masson-Delmotte (20, 21) , M. Medina-Elizalde (22) , B. Otto-Bliesner (23) , M. Pagani (10) , H. Pälike (1) , H. Renssen (24) , D. L. Royer (25) , M. Siddall (26) , P. Valdes (19) , J. C. Zachos (27) , R. E. Zeebe (28)

1 University of Southampton
2 RSES - Research School of Earth Sciences [ANU, Canberra]
3 Department of Earth Sciences - Geochemistry [Utrecht]
4 IMAU - Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research [Utrecht]
5 AWI - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung = Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research = Institut Alfred-Wegener pour la recherche polaire et marine
6 Department of Animal and Plant Sciences [Sheffield]
7 TECLIM - Centre Georges Lemaître for Earth and Climate Research [Louvain]
8 UMass Amherst - University of Massachusetts [Amherst]
9 KNMI - Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
10 Department of Geology and Geophysics [New Haven]
11 PIK - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
12 GISS - NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
13 LDEO - Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
14 IBED - Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics
15 IUPUI - Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis
16 EPS - Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences [Cambridge, USA]
17 IAC - Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science [Zürich]
18 Department of Earth Science [Santa Barbara)
19 School of Geographical Sciences [Bristol]
20 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
21 GLACCIOS - Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables
22 CICY - Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan
23 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]
24 FALW - Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences [Amsterdam]
25 Wesleyan University
26 UWE Bristol - University of the West of England [Bristol]
27 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences [Santa Cruz]
28 SOEST - School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology

Many palaeoclimate studies have quantified pre-anthropogenic climate change to calculate climate sensitivity (equilibrium temperature change in response to radiative forcing change), but a lack of consistent methodologies produces a wide range of estimates and hinders comparability of results. Here we present a stricter approach, to improve intercomparison of palaeoclimate sensitivity estimates in a manner compatible with equilibrium projections for future climate change. Over the past 65 million years, this reveals a climate sensitivity (in KW$^{−1}$ m$^2$) of 0.3-1.9 or 0.6-1.3 at 95% or 68% probability, respectively. The latter implies a warming of 2.2-4.8 K per doubling of atmospheric CO$_2$, which agrees with IPCC estimates

Domaines: Climatologie; Milieux et Changements globaux

E. J. Rohling, A. Sluijs, H. A. Dijkstra, P. Köhler, R. S. W. van de Wal, et al.. Making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity. Nature, 2012, 491 (7426), pp.683-691. ⟨10.1038/nature11574⟩. ⟨cea-00880704⟩