The influence of internal variability on Earth's energy balance framework and implications for estimating climate sensitivity

Dessler, Andrew E.; Mauritsen, Thorsten; Stevens, Bjorn

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5147-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5147-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-5147-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 7

Research article

|

17 Apr 2018

Research article |

| 17 Apr 2018

The influence of internal variability on Earth's energy balance framework and implications for estimating climate sensitivity

Andrew E. Dessler, Thorsten Mauritsen, and Bjorn Stevens

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Apr 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 15 Jan 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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SC1: 'No comparison of modeled and historical variability', Stephen Fitzpatrick, 17 Jan 2018
- AC2: 'Response to comment', Andrew Dessler, 19 Jan 2018
SC2: 'GCM tropical skill', David Young, 17 Jan 2018
- AC1: 'Response to comment', Andrew Dessler, 19 Jan 2018
SC3: 'Linearised energy balance equations', Pehr Björnbom, 02 Feb 2018
- AC3: 'Response to comment', Andrew Dessler, 02 Feb 2018
RC1: 'Review of Dessler et al. acp-2017-1236', Anonymous Referee #1, 06 Feb 2018
- AC4: 'Reply to reviewer', Andrew Dessler, 16 Mar 2018
RC2: 'Review of Dessler et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Feb 2018
- SC4: 'Tropical temperature compared to global mean', Pehr Björnbom, 11 Feb 2018
  - SC5: 'Correction of the equation in comment SC4', Pehr Björnbom, 13 Feb 2018
- AC5: 'Reply to reviewer', Andrew Dessler, 18 Mar 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Andrew Dessler on behalf of the Authors (20 Mar 2018) Author's response

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (23 Mar 2018) by Amanda Maycock

AR by Andrew Dessler on behalf of the Authors (24 Mar 2018) Manuscript

Short summary

One of the most important parameters in climate science is the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS). Estimates of this quantity based on 20th-century observations suggest low values of ECS (below 2 °C). We show that these calculations may be significantly in error. Together with other recent work on this problem, it seems probable that the ECS is larger than suggested by the 20th-century observations.