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A comparison of the behavior of different AOGCMs in transient climate change experiments

The transient response of both surface air temperature and deep ocean temperature to an increasing external forcing strongly depends on climate sensitivity and the rate of the heat mixing into the deep ocean, estimates for both of which have large uncertainty. In this paper we describe a method for estimating rates of oceanic heat uptake for coupled atmosphere/ocean general circulation models from results of transient climate change simulations. For models considered in this study, the estimates vary more than threefold. Nevertheless, values for all models fall in the 5-95% interval of the range implied by the climate record for the last century. The MIT 2D climate model, with an appropriate choice of parameters, matches changes in surface air temperature and sea level rise simulated by different models. It also reproduces the overall range of changes in precipitation. / Abstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change Website. (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/) / Includes bibliographical references (p. 12-14).

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/3564
Date12 1900
ContributorsSokolov, Andrei P., Forest, Chris Eliot., Stone, Peter H.
PublisherMIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Source SetsM.I.T. Theses and Dissertation
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Format14 p., 258327 bytes, application/pdf
Rightshttp://mit.edu/globalchange/www/abstracts.html#a81
RelationReport no. 81

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