Journal articles

Palaeoclimate constraints on the impact of 2 °C anthropogenic warming and beyond

Hubertus Fischer ^{1, 2} Katrin J. Meissner ³ Alan C. Mix ⁴ Nerilie Abram ⁵ Jacqueline Austermann ⁶ Victor Brovkin ⁷ Emilie Capron ^{8, 9} Daniel Colombaroli ² Anne Daniau ¹⁰ Kelsey Dyez ¹¹ Thomas Felis ¹² Sarah Finkelstein ¹³ Samuel Jaccard ² Erin Mcclymont ¹⁴ Alessio Rovere ¹² Johannes Sutter ¹⁵ Eric Wolff ¹⁶ Stéphane Affolter ^{1, 2} Pepijn Bakker ¹² Juan Antonio Ballesteros-Cánovas ¹⁷ Carlo Barbante ¹⁸ Thibaut Caley ¹⁹ Anders E. Carlson ⁴ Olga Churakova ¹⁷ Giuseppe Cortese ²⁰ Brian Cumming ²¹ Basil A.S. Davis ²² Anne de Vernal ²³ Julien Emile-Geay ²⁴ Sherilyn C. Fritz ²⁵ Paul Gierz ¹⁵ Julia Gottschalk ² Max Holloway ⁸ Fortunat Joos ^{1, 2} Michal Kucera ¹² Marie-France Loutre ²⁶ Daniel Lunt ²⁷ Katarzyna Marcisz ^{28, 2} Jennifer Marlon ²⁹ Matias Martinez ¹⁰ Valérie Masson-Delmotte ^{30, 31} Christoph Nehrbass-Ahles ^{1, 2} Bette Otto-Bliesner ³² Christoph Raible ^{1, 2} Bjørg Risebrobakken ³³ María Sánchez Goñi ³⁴ Jennifer Saleem Arrigo ³⁵ Michael Sarnthein ³⁶ Jesper Sjolte ³⁷ Thomas Stocker ^{1, 2} Patricio Velasquez Alvárez ^{1, 2} Willy Tinner ² Paul Valdes ²⁷ Hendrik Vogel ^{38, 2} Heinz Wanner ^{39, 2} Qing Yan ⁴⁰ Zicheng Yu ⁴¹ Martin Ziegler ^{42, 43} Liping Zhou ⁴⁴

1 CEP - Climate and Environmental Physics [Bern]

Physikalisches Institut [Bern]

2 OCCR - Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research

3 CCRC - Climate Change Research Centre [Sydney]

4 CEOAS - College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences [Corvallis]

5 ANU - Australian National University

6 Bullard Laboratories

7 MPI-M - Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

8 BAS - British Antarctic Survey

9 Centre for Ice and Climate [Copenhagen]

10 EPOC - Environnements et Paléoenvironnements OCéaniques

11 LDEO - Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

12 MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences [Bremen]

13 University of Toronto

14 UNIVERSITé DE DURHAM - Department of Geography

15 AWI - Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung

16 CAM - University of Cambridge [UK]

17 University of Geneva [Switzerland]

18 Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes-CNR

19 EPOC - UMR 5805 Environnements et Paléoenvironnements Océaniques et Continentaux

20 GNS Science [Lower Hutt]

21 Queen's University [Kingston, Canada]

22 Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics [Lausanne]

23 GEOTOP - Centre de recherche sur la dynamique du système Terre

24 USC - University of Southern California

25 University of Nebraska–Lincoln

26 PAGES - Past Global Changes International Project Office

27 School of Geographical Sciences [Bristol]

28 Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Monitoring

29 School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

30 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]

31 GLACCIOS - Glaces et Continents, Climats et Isotopes Stables

LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette] : DRF/LSCE

32 NCAR - National Center for Atmospheric Research [Boulder]

33 Uni Research Climate

34 PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres

35 National Coordination Office, Washington

36 Institute of Geosciences [Kiel]

37 Department of Geology, Quaternary Sciences

38 UFZ - Helmholtz Zentrum für Umweltforschung = Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research

39 Institute of Geography [Bern]

40 NZC - Nansen-Zhu International Research Center

41 Lehigh University [Bethlehem]

42 Department of Earth Sciences [Utrecht]

43 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Zurich

44 University of Peking

Abstract : Over the past 3.5 million years, there have been several intervals when climate conditions were warmer than during the pre-industrial Holocene. Although past intervals of warming were forced differently than future anthropogenic change, such periods can provide insights into potential future climate impacts and ecosystem feedbacks, especially over centennial-to-millennial timescales that are often not covered by climate model simulations. Our observation-based synthesis of the understanding of past intervals with temperatures within the range of projected future warming suggests that there is a low risk of runaway greenhouse gas feedbacks for global warming of no more than 2 °C. However, substantial regional environmental impacts can occur. A global average warming of 1–2 °C with strong polar amplification has, in the past, been accompanied by significant shifts in climate zones and the spatial distribution of land and ocean ecosystems. Sustained warming at this level has also led to substantial reductions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, with sea-level increases of at least several metres on millennial timescales. Comparison of palaeo observations with climate model results suggests that, due to the lack of certain feedback processes, model-based climate projections may underestimate long-term warming in response to future radiative forcing by as much as a factor of two, and thus may also underestimate centennial-to-millennial-scale sea-level rise.

Document type :

Journal articles

Domain :

Sciences of the Universe [physics] / Earth Sciences

Sciences of the Universe [physics] / Earth Sciences / Climatology

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Submitted on : Tuesday, October 15, 2019 - 10:44:05 AM
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