Also discussed here: Impact of human activity on local climate mapped (Science Daily, Jan. 20, 2016)
Today we review research that examines the projected climate warming using 12 model runs from cumulative carbon emissions from pre-industrial levels to four times those emissions on different regions of the world. Not unexpectedly, temperatures increase the most in polar regions (more than 5 deg C per trillion tons of emissions) than in low latitude areas and more over land (1.3 deg C) than over oceans (less than 1 deg C). The influence of ice albedo and ocean circulation caused warming that was linear than in land areas far from ice. This approach offers much in the assessment of future climate impacts on a regional or locals scale.
Key Quotes:
"a map that shows how the climate changes in response to cumulative carbon emissions around the world. They found that temperature increases in most parts of the world respond linearly to cumulative emissions…the results of simulations in which CO2 emissions caused the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to increase by 1 per cent each year until it reached four times the levels recorded prior to the Industrial Revolution. “
"Globally, the researchers saw an average temperature increase of 1.7 ±0.4°C per trillion tonnes of carbon in CO2 emissions”
"As these numbers show, equatorial regions warm the slowest, while the Arctic warms the fastest. Of course, this is what we've already seen happen -- rapid changes in the Arctic are outpacing the rest of the planet,"
"This provides a simple and powerful link between total global emissions of carbon dioxide and local climate warming. This approach can be used to show how much human emissions are to blame for local changes."
"To date, humans have emitted almost 600 billion tonnes of carbon. This means that land areas on average have already warmed by 1.3°C because of these emissions. At current emission rates, we will have emitted enough CO¬2 to warm land areas by 2°C within 3 decades."
“high-latitude ocean regions deviate more strongly from linearity as compared to land and lower-latitude oceans. This suggests that ice-albedo and ocean circulation feedbacks are important contributors to the overall negative deviation from linearity of the global temperature response to high levels of cumulative emissions.”
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