scholarly journals ESD Ideas: A Global Warming Scaling Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Verbitsky ◽  
Michael Mann
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Scaling Law ◽  
Climate System ◽  
System Response ◽  
External Forcing ◽  
Climate Feedbacks ◽  
Positive Feedbacks ◽  
Incomplete Similarity ◽  
Negative Feedbacks ◽  
Climate Responses

Abstract. In this study, we highlight a component of global warming variability, a scaling law that is based purely on fundamental physical properties of the climate system. We suggest that three similarity parameters define the system response to external forcing, and an argument of physical similarity with observed climate responses in the past can be made when all three parameters are identical for the current and historical climates. We determined that the scaling law of global warming is the (𝜆 + 1 + m) – power of time, where 𝜆 is prescribed by external forcing and m is defined by climate system internal dynamics. When the climate system develops in the direction of intensified positive feedbacks, the power m changes from m = −1 (negative feedbacks dominate) to m ≥ 1 (positive feedbacks dominate). We also establish that a “hothouse” climate with dominant positive feedbacks will be preceded by a climate having a property of incomplete similarity in feedbacks similarity parameters. It implies that the same future scenario may be produced by climate feedbacks of different magnitudes as long as their positive-to-negative ratio is the same.

The changing effects of Alaska’s boreal forests on the climate systemThis article is one of a selection of papers from The Dynamics of Change in Alaska’s Boreal Forests: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming.

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 1336-1346 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.S. Euskirchen ◽  
A.D. McGuire ◽  
F.S. Chapin ◽  
T.S. Rupp
Keyword(s):  
Boreal Forests ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Climate Feedbacks ◽  
Regional Warming ◽  
Positive Feedbacks ◽  
Forest Resilience ◽  
And Function ◽  
Positive Climate

In the boreal forests of Alaska, recent changes in climate have influenced the exchange of trace gases, water, and energy between these forests and the atmosphere. These changes in the structure and function of boreal forests can then feed back to impact regional and global climates. In this manuscript, we examine the type and magnitude of the climate feedbacks from boreal forests in Alaska. Research generally suggests that the net effect of a warming climate is a positive regional feedback to warming. Currently, the primary positive climate feedbacks are likely related to decreases in surface albedo due to decreases in snow cover. Fewer negative feedbacks have been identified, and they may not be large enough to counterbalance the large positive feedbacks. These positive feedbacks are most pronounced at the regional scale and reduce the resilience of the boreal vegetation – climate system by amplifying the rate of regional warming. Given the recent warming in this region, the large variety of associated mechanisms that can alter terrestrial ecosystems and influence the climate system, and a reduction in the boreal forest resilience, there is a strong need to continue to quantify and evaluate the feedback pathways.

Extratropical Influence on ITCZ Shifts in Slab Ocean Simulations of Global Warming

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 720-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dargan M. W. Frierson ◽  
Yen-Ting Hwang
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Ocean Model ◽  
Positive Feedbacks ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Concentrations ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Slab Ocean ◽  
Extratropical Forcing ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Climate Responses

Abstract Recent studies with climate models have demonstrated the power of extratropical forcing in causing the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) to shift northward or southward, and paleoclimate data support the notion that there have been large shifts in the ITCZ over time. It is shown that similar notions apply to slab ocean simulations of global warming. Nine slab ocean model simulations from different modeling centers show a wide range of ITCZ shifts in response to doubling carbon dioxide concentrations, which are experienced in a rather zonally symmetric way in the tropics. Using an attribution strategy based on fundamental energetic constraints, it is shown that responses of clouds and ice in the extratropics explain much of the range of ITCZ responses. There are also some positive feedbacks within the tropics due to increasing water vapor content and high clouds in the new ITCZ location, which amplify the changes driven from the extratropics. This study shows the clear importance of simulating extratropical climate responses with fidelity, because in addition to their local importance, the impacts of these climate responses have a large nonlocal impact on rainfall in the tropics.

Modelling the climate system response to small external forcing

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
V. P. Dymnikov ◽  
N. A. Diansky ◽  
V. Ya. Galin ◽  
A. V. Glazunov ◽  
A. S. Gritsoun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate System ◽  
System Response ◽  
External Forcing

scholarly journals On the Milankovitch sensitivity of the Quaternary deep-sea record

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1237-1257
Author(s):  
W. H. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
External Forcing ◽  
Orbital Forcing ◽  
Early Pliocene ◽  
System A

Abstract. The response of the climate system to external forcing has become an item of prime interest in the context of global warming, especially with respect to the rate of melting land-based ice masses. The deep-sea record of ice-age climate change has been useful in assessing the sensitivity of the climate system to such forcing, notably to orbital forcing, which is well-known for the last several million years. When comparing response and forcing, one finds that sensitivity varies greatly through time, apparently in dependence on the state of the system. The changing stability of ice masses presumably is the underlying cause for the changing state of the system. A buildup of vulnerable ice masses within the latest Tertiary, when going into the ice ages, is conjectured to cause a stepwise increase of climate variability since the early Pliocene.

scholarly journals On the Milankovitch sensitivity of the Quaternary deep-sea record

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 2003-2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. H. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
External Forcing ◽  
Orbital Forcing ◽  
System A ◽  
Yield Information

Abstract. The response of the climate system to external forcing (that is, global warming) has become an item of prime interest, especially with respect to the rate of melting of land-based ice masses. The deep-sea record of ice-age climate change has been useful in assessing the sensitivity of the climate system to a different type of forcing; that is, to orbital forcing, which is well known for the last several million years. The expectation is that the response to one type of forcing will yield information about the likely response to other types of forcing. When comparing response and orbital forcing, one finds that sensitivity to this type of forcing varies greatly through time, evidently in dependence on the state of the system and the associated readiness of the system for change. The changing stability of ice masses is here presumed to be the chief underlying cause for the changing state of the system. A buildup of vulnerable ice masses within the latest Tertiary, when going into the ice ages, is thus here conjectured to cause a stepwise increase of climate variability since the early Pliocene.

scholarly journals Global warming projection using NCAR Climate System Model (CSM)

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 187-192
Author(s):  
Hiromaru HIRAKUCHI ◽  
Kohki MARUYAMA ◽  
Jun'ichi TSUTSUI ◽  
Norikazu NAKASHIKI
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate System ◽  
System Model ◽  
Climate System Model ◽  
Global Warming Projection

scholarly journals Host-pathogen Immune Feedbacks Can Explain Widely Divergent Outcomes from Similar Infections

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Ellner ◽  
Nicolas Buchon ◽  
Tobias Doerr ◽  
Brian P Lazzaro
Keyword(s):  
Bacterial Population ◽  
Dynamic Models ◽  
System Response ◽  
Chronic Infections ◽  
Host Immune Responses ◽  
Lethal Infection ◽  
Negative Feedbacks ◽  
Immune System Response ◽  
Natural Result ◽  
The Cost

A longstanding question in infection biology is why two very similar individuals, with very similar pathogen exposures, may have very different outcomes. Recent experiments have found that even isogenic \emph{Drosophila melanogaster} hosts, given identical inoculations of some bacterial pathogens at suitable doses, can experience very similar initial bacteria proliferation but then diverge to either a lethal infection or a sustained chronic infection with much lower pathogen load. We hypothesized that divergent infection outcomes are a natural result of mutual negative feedbacks between pathogens and the host immune response. Here we test this hypothesis \emph{in silico} by constructing process-based dynamic models for bacterial population growth,host immune induction, and the feedbacks between them, based on common mechanisms of immune system response. Mathematical analysis of a minimal conceptual model confirms our qualitative hypothesis that mutual negative feedbacks can magnify small differences among hosts into life-or-death differences in outcome. However, explaining observed features of chronic infections requires an extension of the model to include induced pathogen modifications that shield themselves from host immune responses at the cost of reduced proliferation rate. Our analysis thus generates new, testable predictions about the mechanisms underlying bimodal infection outcomes.

scholarly journals Recent advances in understanding the Arctic climate system state and change from a sea ice perspective: a review

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 10929-10999 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Döscher ◽  
T. Vihma ◽  
E. Maksimovich
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Sea Ice ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Arctic Climate ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Atlantic Sector ◽  
Sea Ice Decline ◽  
Arctic Sea

Abstract. The Arctic sea ice is the central and essential component of the Arctic climate system. The depletion and areal decline of the Arctic sea ice cover, observed since the 1970's, have accelerated after the millennium shift. While a relationship to global warming is evident and is underpinned statistically, the mechanisms connected to the sea ice reduction are to be explored in detail. Sea ice erodes both from the top and from the bottom. Atmosphere, sea ice and ocean processes interact in non-linear ways on various scales. Feedback mechanisms lead to an Arctic amplification of the global warming system. The amplification is both supported by the ice depletion and is at the same time accelerating the ice reduction. Knowledge of the mechanisms connected to the sea ice decline has grown during the 1990's and has deepened when the acceleration became clear in the early 2000's. Record summer sea ice extents in 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2012 provided additional information on the mechanisms. This article reviews recent progress in understanding of the sea ice decline. Processes are revisited from an atmospheric, ocean and sea ice perspective. There is strong evidence for decisive atmospheric changes being the major driver of sea ice change. Feedbacks due to reduced ice concentration, surface albedo and thickness allow for additional local atmosphere and ocean influences and self-supporting feedbacks. Large scale ocean influences on the Arctic Ocean hydrology and circulation are highly evident. Northward heat fluxes in the ocean are clearly impacting the ice margins, especially in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic. Only little indication exists for a direct decisive influence of the warming ocean on the overall sea ice cover, due to an isolating layer of cold and fresh water underneath the sea ice.

scholarly journals Late quaternary temperature variability described as abrupt transitions on a 1/<i>f</i> noise background

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 2323-2337
Author(s):  
M. Rypdal ◽  
K. Rypdal
Keyword(s):  
Time Scales ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Scaling Law ◽  
Temperature Variability ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Scaling Analysis ◽  
Noise Background ◽  
Quaternary Climate ◽  
Last Glaciation ◽  
Climate Noise

Abstract. We show that in order to have a scaling description of the climate system that is not inherently non-stationary, the rapid shifts between stadial and interstadial conditions during the last glaciation cannot be included in the scaling law. The same is true for the shifts between the glacial and interglacial states in the quaternary climate. When these events are omitted from a scaling analysis we find that the climate noise is consistent with a 1/f law on time scales from months to 105 years.

scholarly journals Recent advances in understanding the Arctic climate system state and change from a sea ice perspective: a review

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (24) ◽  
pp. 13571-13600 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Döscher ◽  
T. Vihma ◽  
E. Maksimovich
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Sea Ice ◽  
Ice Cover ◽  
Arctic Sea Ice ◽  
Climate System ◽  
Arctic Climate ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Atlantic Sector ◽  
Sea Ice Decline

Abstract. Sea ice is the central component and most sensitive indicator of the Arctic climate system. Both the depletion and areal decline of the Arctic sea ice cover, observed since the 1970s, have accelerated since the millennium. While the relationship of global warming to sea ice reduction is evident and underpinned statistically, it is the connecting mechanisms that are explored in detail in this review. Sea ice erodes both from the top and the bottom. Atmospheric, oceanic and sea ice processes interact in non-linear ways on various scales. Feedback mechanisms lead to an Arctic amplification of the global warming system: the amplification is both supported by the ice depletion and, at the same time, accelerates ice reduction. Knowledge of the mechanisms of sea ice decline grew during the 1990s and deepened when the acceleration became clear in the early 2000s. Record minimum summer sea ice extents in 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2012 provide additional information on the mechanisms. This article reviews recent progress in understanding the sea ice decline. Processes are revisited from atmospheric, oceanic and sea ice perspectives. There is strong evidence that decisive atmospheric changes are the major driver of sea ice change. Feedbacks due to reduced ice concentration, surface albedo, and ice thickness allow for additional local atmospheric and oceanic influences and self-supporting feedbacks. Large-scale ocean influences on Arctic Ocean hydrology and circulation are highly evident. Northward heat fluxes in the ocean are clearly impacting the ice margins, especially in the Atlantic sector of the Arctic. There is little indication of a direct and decisive influence of the warming ocean on the overall sea ice cover, due to an isolating layer of cold and fresh water underneath the sea ice.

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