Making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity

E. J. Rohling (1, 2) , A. Sluijs (3) , H. A. Dijkstra (4) , P. Köhler (5) , R. S. W. van de Wal (4) , A. S. von Der Heydt (4) , D. J. Beerling (6) , A. Berger (7) , P. K. Bijl (3) , M. Crucifix (7) , R. Deconto (8) , S. S. Drijfhout (9) , A. Fedorov (10) , G. L. Foster (1) , A. Ganopolski (11) , J. Hansen (12) , B. Hönisch (13) , H. Hooghiemstra (14) , M. Huber (15) , P. Huybers (16) , R. Knutti (17) , D. W. Lea (18) , L. J. Lourens (3) , D. Lunt (19) , Valérie Masson-Delmotte (20, 21) , M. Medina-Elizalde (22) , B. Otto-Bliesner (23) , M. Pagani (10) , H. Pälike (1) , H. Renssen (24) , D. L. Royer (25) , M. Siddall (26) , P. Valdes (19) , J. C. Zachos (27) , R. E. Zeebe (28)

1 University of Southampton
2 RSES - Research School of Earth Sciences [Canberra]
3 Department of Earth Sciences - Geochemistry [Utrecht]
4 IMAU - Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research [Utrecht]
5 AWI - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung
6 Department of Animal and Plant Sciences [Sheffield]
7 TECLIM - Centre Georges Lemaître for Earth and Climate Research [Louvain]
8 UMass Amherst - University of Massachusetts [Amherst]
9 KNMI - Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
10 Department of Geology and Geophysics [New Haven]
11 PIK - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
12 GISS - NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
13 LDEO - Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
14 IBED - Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics
15 IUPUI - Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis
16 EPS - Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences [Cambridge, USA]
17 IAC - Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science [Zürich]
18 Department of Earth Science [Santa Barbara)
19 School of Geographical Sciences [Bristol]
20 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
21 GLACCIOS - Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables
22 CICY - Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan
23 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]
24 FALW - Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences [Amsterdam]
25 Wesleyan University
26 UWE Bristol - University of the West of England [Bristol]
27 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences [Santa Cruz]
28 SOEST - School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology

Many palaeoclimate studies have quantified pre-anthropogenic climate change to calculate climate sensitivity (equilibrium temperature change in response to radiative forcing change), but a lack of consistent methodologies produces a wide range of estimates and hinders comparability of results. Here we present a stricter approach, to improve intercomparison of palaeoclimate sensitivity estimates in a manner compatible with equilibrium projections for future climate change. Over the past 65 million years, this reveals a climate sensitivity (in KW$^{−1}$ m$^2$) of 0.3-1.9 or 0.6-1.3 at 95% or 68% probability, respectively. The latter implies a warming of 2.2-4.8 K per doubling of atmospheric CO$_2$, which agrees with IPCC estimates

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Earth Sciences; Climatology; Environmental Sciences; Global Changes

E. J. Rohling, A. Sluijs, H. A. Dijkstra, P. Köhler, R. S. W. van de Wal, et al.. Making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity. Nature, 2012, 491 (7426), pp.683-691. ⟨10.1038/nature11574⟩. ⟨cea-00880704⟩