Historical greenhouse gas concentrations for climate modelling (CMIP6)

Abstract. Atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations are at unprecedented, record-high levels compared to the last 800 000 years. Those elevated GHG concentrations warm the planet and – partially offset by net cooling effects by aerosols – are largely responsible for the observed warming over the past 150 years. An accurate representation of GHG concentrations is hence important to understand and model recent climate change. So far, community efforts to create composite datasets of GHG concentrations with seasonal and latitudinal information have focused on marine boundary layer conditions and recent trends since the 1980s. Here, we provide consolidated datasets of historical atmospheric concentrations (mole fractions) of 43 GHGs to be used in the Climate Model Intercomparison Project – Phase 6 (CMIP6) experiments. The presented datasets are based on AGAGE and NOAA networks, firn and ice core data, and archived air data, and a large set of published studies. In contrast to previous intercomparisons, the new datasets are latitudinally resolved and include seasonality. We focus on the period 1850–2014 for historical CMIP6 runs, but data are also provided for the last 2000 years. We provide consolidated datasets in various spatiotemporal resolutions for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), as well as 40 other GHGs, namely 17 ozone-depleting substances, 11 hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), 9 perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) and sulfuryl fluoride (SO2F2). In addition, we provide three equivalence species that aggregate concentrations of GHGs other than CO2, CH4 and N2O, weighted by their radiative forcing efficiencies. For the year 1850, which is used for pre-industrial control runs, we estimate annual global-mean surface concentrations of CO2 at 284.3 ppm, CH4 at 808.2 ppb and N2O at 273.0 ppb. The data are available at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/input4mips/ and http://www.climatecollege.unimelb.edu.au/cmip6. While the minimum CMIP6 recommendation is to use the global- and annual-mean time series, modelling groups can also choose our monthly and latitudinally resolved concentrations, which imply a stronger radiative forcing in the Northern Hemisphere winter (due to the latitudinal gradient and seasonality).

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Historical greenhouse gas concentrations

10.5194/gmd-2016-169 ◽

2016 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Malte Meinshausen ◽

Elisabeth Vogel ◽

Alexander Nauels ◽

Katja Lorbacher ◽

Nicolai Meinshausen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Sulfur Hexafluoride ◽

Climate Model ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Large Set ◽

Mixing Ratios ◽

Surface Mixing ◽

Cooling Effects

Abstract. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are at unprecedented, record-high levels compared to pre-industrial reconstructions over the last 800,000 years. Those elevated greenhouse gas concentrations warm the planet and together with net cooling effects by aerosols, they are the reason of observed climate change over the past 150 years. An accurate representation of those concentrations is hence important to understand and model recent and future climate change. So far, community efforts to create composite datasets with seasonal and latitudinal information have focused on marine boundary layer conditions and recent trends since 1980s. Here, we provide consolidated data sets of historical atmospheric (volume) mixing ratios of 43 greenhouse gases specifically for the purpose of climate model runs. The presented datasets are based on AGAGE and NOAA networks and a large set of literature studies. In contrast to previous intercomparisons, the new datasets are latitudinally resolved, and include seasonality over the period between year 0 to 2014. We assimilate data for CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), 5 chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), 3 hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), 16 hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), 3 halons, methyl bromide (CH3Br), 3 perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), nitrogen triflouride (NF3) and sulfuryl fluoride (SO2F2). We estimate 1850 annual and global mean surface mixing ratios of CO2 at 284.3 ppmv, CH4 at 808.2 ppbv and N2O at 273.0 ppbv and quantify the seasonal and hemispheric gradients of surface mixing ratios. Compared to earlier intercomparisons, the stronger implied radiative forcing in the northern hemisphere winter (due to the latitudinal gradient and seasonality) may help to improve the skill of climate models to reproduce past climate and thereby reduce uncertainty in future projections.

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Chemical and climatic drivers of radiative forcing due to changes in stratospheric and tropospheric ozone over the 21st century

10.5194/acp-2017-741 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Antara Banerjee ◽

Amanda C. Maycock ◽

John A. Pyle

Keyword(s):

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Tropospheric Ozone ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Climate Model ◽

Stratospheric Ozone ◽

Radiative Forcings ◽

Climatic Drivers ◽

Ozone Precursor ◽

Ozone Depleting Substances ◽

Projected Changes

Abstract. The ozone radiative forcings (RFs) resulting from projected changes in climate, ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), non-methane ozone precursor emissions and methane between the years 2000 and 2100 are calculated using simulations from the UM-UKCA chemistry-climate model. Projected measures to improve air-quality through reductions in tropospheric ozone precursor emissions present a co-benefit for climate, with a net global mean ozone RF of −0.09 Wm−2. This is opposed by a positive ozone RF of 0.07 Wm−2 due to future decreases in ODSs, which is mainly driven by an increase in tropospheric ozone through stratosphere-to-troposphere exchange. An increase in methane abundance by more than a factor of two (as projected by the RCP8.5 scenario) is found to drive an ozone RF of 0.19 Wm−2, which would greatly outweigh the climate benefits of tropospheric non-methane ozone precursor reductions. A third of the ozone RF due to the projected increase in methane results from increases in stratospheric ozone. The sign of the ozone RF due to future changes in climate (including the radiative effects of greenhouse gas concentrations, sea surface temperatures and sea ice changes) is shown to be dependent on the greenhouse gas emissions pathway, with a positive RF (0.06 Wm−2) for RCP4.5 and a negative RF (−0.07 Wm−2) for the RCP8.5 scenario. This dependence arises from differences in the contribution to RF from stratospheric ozone changes.

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Long-term trend analysis and climatology of tropical cirrus clouds using 16 years of lidar data set over Southern India

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-15-13833-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 15 (24) ◽

pp. 13833-13848 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

A. K. Pandit ◽

H. S. Gadhavi ◽

M. Venkat Ratnam ◽

K. Raghunath ◽

S. V. B. Rao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Optical Thickness ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Climate Model ◽

Cirrus Clouds ◽

Orthogonal Polarization ◽

Cirrus Cloud ◽

Data Set ◽

Tropical Tropopause ◽

Recent Climate ◽

Ground Based Lidar

Abstract. Sixteen-year (1998–2013) climatology of cirrus clouds and their macrophysical (base height, top height and geometrical thickness) and optical properties (cloud optical thickness) observed using a ground-based lidar over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), India, is presented. The climatology obtained from the ground-based lidar is compared with the climatology obtained from 7 and a half years (June 2006–December 2013) of Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) observations. A very good agreement is found between the two climatologies in spite of their opposite viewing geometries and the differences in sampling frequencies. Nearly 50–55 % of cirrus clouds were found to possess geometrical thickness less than 2 km. Ground-based lidar is found to detect a higher number of sub-visible clouds than CALIOP which has implications for global warming studies as sub-visible cirrus clouds have significant positive radiative forcing. Cirrus clouds with mid-cloud temperatures between −50 to −70 °C have a mean geometrical thickness greater than 2 km in contrast to the earlier reported value of 1.7 km. Trend analyses reveal a statistically significant increase in the altitude of sub-visible cirrus clouds which is consistent with the recent climate model simulations. The mid-cloud altitude of sub-visible cirrus clouds is found to be increasing at the rate of 41 ± 21 m year−1. Statistically significant decrease in optical thickness of sub-visible and thick cirrus clouds is observed. Also, the fraction of sub-visible cirrus cloud is found to have increased by 9 % in the last 16 years (1998 to 2013). This increase is mainly compensated by a 7 % decrease in thin cirrus cloud fraction. This has implications for the temperature and water vapour budget in the tropical tropopause layer.

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Exposing Global Cloud Biases in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) Using Satellite Observations and Their Corresponding Instrument Simulators

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-11-00469.1 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 25 (15) ◽

pp. 5190-5207 ◽

Cited By ~ 183

Author(s):

J. E. Kay ◽

B. R. Hillman ◽

S. A. Klein ◽

Y. Zhang ◽

B. Medeiros ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Radiative Forcing ◽

Marine Boundary Layer ◽

Climate Model ◽

Substantial Improvement ◽

Satellite Observations ◽

Cloud Properties ◽

Community Atmosphere Model ◽

Realistic Representation ◽

Model Cloud ◽

Atmosphere Model

Abstract Satellite observations and their corresponding instrument simulators are used to document global cloud biases in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) versions 4 and 5. The model–observation comparisons show that, despite having nearly identical cloud radiative forcing, CAM5 has a much more realistic representation of cloud properties than CAM4. In particular, CAM5 exhibits substantial improvement in three long-standing climate model cloud biases: 1) the underestimation of total cloud, 2) the overestimation of optically thick cloud, and 3) the underestimation of midlevel cloud. While the increased total cloud and decreased optically thick cloud in CAM5 result from improved physical process representation, the increased midlevel cloud in CAM5 results from the addition of radiatively active snow. Despite these improvements, both CAM versions have cloud deficiencies. Of particular concern, both models exhibit large but differing biases in the subtropical marine boundary layer cloud regimes that are known to explain intermodel differences in cloud feedbacks and climate sensitivity. More generally, this study demonstrates that simulator-facilitated evaluation of cloud properties, such as amount by vertical level and optical depth, can robustly expose large and at times radiatively compensating climate model cloud biases.

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Detecting the influence of fossil fuel and bio-fuel black carbon aerosols on near surface temperature changes

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-11-799-2011 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 799-816 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

G. S. Jones ◽

N. Christidis ◽

P. A. Stott

Keyword(s):

Greenhouse Gases ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Black Carbon ◽

20Th Century ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate ◽

Anthropogenic Aerosols ◽

Near Surface

Abstract. Past research has shown that the dominant influence on recent global climate changes is from anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases with implications for future increases in global temperatures. One mitigation proposal is to reduce black carbon aerosol emissions. How much warming can be offset by controlling black carbon is unclear, especially as its influence on past climate has not been previously unambiguously detected. In this study observations of near-surface warming over the last century are compared with simulations using a climate model, HadGEM1. In the simulations black carbon, from fossil fuel and bio-fuel sources (fBC), produces a positive radiative forcing of about +0.25 Wm−2 over the 20th century, compared with +2.52 Wm−2 for well mixed greenhouse gases. A simulated warming of global mean near-surface temperatures over the twentieth century from fBC of 0.14 ± 0.1 K compares with 1.06 ± 0.07 K from greenhouse gases, −0.58 ± 0.10 K from anthropogenic aerosols, ozone and land use changes and 0.09 ± 0.09 K from natural influences. Using a detection and attribution methodology, the observed warming since 1900 has detectable influences from anthropogenic and natural factors. Fossil fuel and bio-fuel black carbon is found to have a detectable contribution to the warming over the last 50 yr of the 20th century, although the results are sensitive to the period being examined as fBC is not detected for the later fifty year period ending in 2006. The attributed warming of fBC was found to be consistent with the warming from fBC unscaled by the detection analysis. This study suggests that there is a possible significant influence from fBC on global temperatures, but its influence is small compared to that from greenhouse gas emissions.

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16 year climatology of cirrus clouds over a tropical station in southern India using ground and space-based lidar observations

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-15-15791-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 15 (11) ◽

pp. 15791-15830

Author(s):

A. K. Pandit ◽

H. S. Gadhavi ◽

M. Venkat Ratnam ◽

K. Raghunath ◽

S. V. B. Rao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Radiative Forcing ◽

Climate Model ◽

Cirrus Clouds ◽

Orthogonal Polarization ◽

Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽

Tropical Tropopause ◽

Recent Climate ◽

Cloud Optical Thickness ◽

Climate Model Simulations ◽

Ground Based Lidar

Abstract. 16 year (1998–2013) climatology of cirrus clouds and their macrophysical (base height, top height and geometrical thickness) and optical properties (cloud optical thickness) observed using a ground-based lidar over Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), India, is presented. The climatology obtained from the ground-based lidar is compared with the climatology obtained from seven and half years (June 2006–December 2013) of Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) observations. A very good agreement is found between the two climatologies in spite of their opposite viewing geometries and difference in sampling frequencies. Nearly 50–55% of cirrus clouds were found to possess geometrical thickness less than 2 km. Ground-based lidar is found to detect more number of sub-visible clouds than CALIOP which has implications for global warming studies as sub-visible cirrus clouds have significant positive radiative forcing. Cirrus clouds with mid-cloud temperatures between −50 to −70 °C have a mean geometrical thickness greater than 2 km in contrast to the earlier reported value of 1.7 km. Trend analyses reveal a statistically significant increase in the altitude of sub-visible cirrus clouds which is consistent with the recent climate model simulations. Also, the fraction of sub-visible cirrus cloud is found to be increasing during the last sixteen years (1998 to 2013) which has implications to the temperature and water vapour budget in the tropical tropopause layer.

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Dry season water availability changes attributed to human-induced climate change

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-12658 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ryan S. Padrón ◽

Lukas Gudmundsson ◽

Agnès Ducharne ◽

David M. Lawrence ◽

Jiafu Mao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Water Availability ◽

Land Surface ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Climate Model ◽

Dry Season ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Northern Asia ◽

Climate Model Simulations

Human-induced climate change poses potential impacts on the availability of water resources. Previous assessments of warming-induced changes in dryness, however, are influenced by short observational records and show conflicting results due to uncertainties in the response of evapotranspiration. In this study we use novel observation-based water availability reconstructions from data-driven and land surface models from 1902 to 2014; a period during which the Earth has warmed approximately 1&#176;C relative to pre-industrial conditions. These reconstructions reveal consistent changes in average water availability of the driest month of the year during the last 30 years compared to the first half of the 20th&#160;century. We conduct a simple attribution approach based on a spatial correlation analysis between the reconstructions and different climate model simulations. Results indicate that the spatial pattern of changes is extremely likely influenced by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions as it is consistent with climate model estimates that include historical radiative forcing, whereas the pattern is not expected from natural climate variability given by climate simulations with greenhouse gas levels set to pre-industrial conditions. Changes in water availability are characterized by drier dry seasons predominantly in extratropical latitudes and including Europe, Western North America, Northern Asia, Southern South America, Australia, and Eastern Africa. Finally, we find that the intensification of the dry season is generally a consequence of increasing evapotranspiration rather than decreasing precipitation.

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Evaluation of the absolute regional temperature potential

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-12-7955-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (17) ◽

pp. 7955-7960 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

D. T. Shindell

Keyword(s):

Radiative Forcing ◽

Large Scale ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Temperature Response ◽

The Arctic ◽

Large Set ◽

Temperature Potential ◽

Regional Temperature ◽

The Absolute

Abstract. The Absolute Regional Temperature Potential (ARTP) is one of the few climate metrics that provides estimates of impacts at a sub-global scale. The ARTP presented here gives the time-dependent temperature response in four latitude bands (90–28° S, 28° S–28° N, 28–60° N and 60–90° N) as a function of emissions based on the forcing in those bands caused by the emissions. It is based on a large set of simulations performed with a single atmosphere-ocean climate model to derive regional forcing/response relationships. Here I evaluate the robustness of those relationships using the forcing/response portion of the ARTP to estimate regional temperature responses to the historic aerosol forcing in three independent climate models. These ARTP results are in good accord with the actual responses in those models. Nearly all ARTP estimates fall within ±20% of the actual responses, though there are some exceptions for 90–28° S and the Arctic, and in the latter the ARTP may vary with forcing agent. However, for the tropics and the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes in particular, the ±20% range appears to be roughly consistent with the 95% confidence interval. Land areas within these two bands respond 39–45% and 9–39% more than the latitude band as a whole. The ARTP, presented here in a slightly revised form, thus appears to provide a relatively robust estimate for the responses of large-scale latitude bands and land areas within those bands to inhomogeneous radiative forcing and thus potentially to emissions as well. Hence this metric could allow rapid evaluation of the effects of emissions policies at a finer scale than global metrics without requiring use of a full climate model.

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Greenhouse-gas feedbacks estimated from Dansgaard-Oeschger events

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-3660 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Mengmeng Liu ◽

Laurie Menviel ◽

Iain Colin Prentice ◽

Sandy P. Harrison

Keyword(s):

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Climate Model ◽

Ice Core ◽

Temperature Changes ◽

Model Based ◽

Global Mean Temperature ◽

Feedback Strength ◽

Climate Model Simulations ◽

Global Mean

There are large uncertainties in the estimation of greenhouse-gas feedbacks: model-based estimates vary considerably; recent observations are too short provide strong constraints. Rapid climate changes during the last glacial period (Dansgaard-Oeschger, D-O, events) are potentially valuable because they are comparable in rate and magnitude to projected future climate warming, and are registered near-globally. Here we use D-O events to quantify the centennial-scale feedback strength of feedbacks involving CO2, CH4 and N2O. We use climate model simulations of the D-O events to estimate the relationship between global mean and Greenland temperature. We then relate global mean temperature changes to changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations derived from ice-core records, and then estimate the associated radiative forcing. We found the magnitude of the feedbacks (expressed in gain, with 95 % confidence interval) to be 0.07 &#177; 0.02 for CO2, 0.04 &#177; 0.01 for CH4, 0.04 &#177; 0.01 for N2O. These estimates are more constrained than previous model-based estimates but comparable to estimates based on recent observations.

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Evaluation of the absolute regional temperature potential

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-12-13813-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 13813-13825 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

D. T. Shindell

Keyword(s):

Radiative Forcing ◽

Large Scale ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Temperature Response ◽

Global Scale ◽

Large Set ◽

Temperature Potential ◽

Regional Temperature ◽

The Absolute

Abstract. The Absolute Regional Temperature Potential (ARTP) is one of the few climate metrics that provides estimates of impacts at a sub-global scale. The ARTP gives the time-dependent temperature response in four latitude bands (90–28° S, 28° S–28° N, 28–60° N and 60–90° N) as a function of the regional forcing imposed in those bands. It is based on a large set of simulations performed with a single atmosphere-ocean climate model. Here I evaluate ARTP estimates of regional temperature responses due to historic aerosol forcing in three independent climate models and show that the ARTP metric provides results in good accord with the actual responses in those models. Nearly all ARTP estimates fall within ±20% of the actual responses, and in particular for the tropics and the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes this range appears to be roughly consistent with the 95% confidence interval. Land areas within these two bands respond 41 ± 6% and 19 ± 28% more than the latitude band as a whole. The ARTP, presented here in a slightly revised form, thus appears to provide a relatively robust estimate for the responses of large-scale latitude bands and land areas within those bands to inhomogeneous radiative forcing.

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Historical greenhouse gas concentrations for climate modelling (CMIP6)