Predicting Climate Change through Response Operators in a Coupled General Circulation Model
<p>Global Climate Models are key tools for predicting the future response of the climate system to a variety of natural and anthropogenic forcings. Typically, an ensemble of simulations is performed considering a scenario of forcing, in order to analyse the response of the climate system to the specific forcing signal. Given that the the climate response spans a very large range of timescales, such a strategy often requires a dramatic amount of computational resources. In this paper we show how to use statistical mechanics to construct operators able to flexibly predict climate change for a variety of climatic variables of interest, going beyond the limitation of having to consider specific time patterns of forcing. We perform our study on a fully coupled GCM - MPI-ESM v.1.2 - and for the first time we prove the effectiveness of response theory in predicting future climate response to CO<sub>2</sub>&#160;increase on a vast range of temporal scales. We specifically treat atmospheric &#160;(surface temperature) and oceanic variables (strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current), as well as the global ocean heat uptake.</p>