The impact of stratospheric ozone feedbacks on climate sensitivity estimates
File(s)accepted_compact.pdf (1.13 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Nowack, PJ
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A number of climate modeling studies have shown that differences between typical choices for representing ozone can affect climate change projections. Here we investigate potential climate impacts of a specific ozone representation used in simulations of the Hadley Centre Global Environment Model for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. The method considers ozone changes only in the troposphere and lower stratosphere and prescribes stratospheric ozone elsewhere. For a standard climate sensitivity simulation, we find that this method leads to significantly increased global warming and specific patterns of regional surface warming compared with a fully interactive atmospheric chemistry setup. We explain this mainly by the suppressed part of the stratospheric ozone changes and the associated alteration of the stratospheric water vapor feedback. This combined effect is modulated by simultaneous cirrus cloud changes. We underline the need to understand better how representations of ozone can affect climate modeling results and, in particular, global and regional climate sensitivity estimates.
Date Issued
2018-05-02
Date Acceptance
2018-03-01
Citation
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2018, 123 (9), pp.4630-4641
ISSN
2169-897X
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Start Page
4630
End Page
4641
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Volume
123
Issue
9
Copyright Statement
©2018. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Nowack, P. J., Abraham, N. L., Braesicke, P., & Pyle, J. A. (2018). The impact of stratospheric ozone feedbacks on climate sensitivity estimates. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 123, 4630–4641. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD027943
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
ozone
climate sensitivity
feedback
forcing
stratospheric water vapor
CMIP5
GLOBAL LIGHTNING DISTRIBUTIONS
BREWER-DOBSON CIRCULATION
WATER-VAPOR FEEDBACK
LAGRANGIAN TRANSPORT
ACCURATE SIMULATION
CHEMICAL-MODELS
EARTH-SYSTEM
CHEMISTRY
PHOTOLYSIS
DESIGN
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2018-05-02