Making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity

E. J. Rohling, A. Sluijs, H. A. Dijkstra, P. Köhler, R. S.W. Van De Wal, A. S. Von Der Heydt, D. J. Beerling, A. Berger, P. K. Bijl, M. Crucifix, R. Deconto, S. S. Drijfhout, A. Fedorov, G. L. Foster, A. Ganopolski, J. Hansen, B. Hönisch, H. Hooghiemstra, M. Huber, P. HuybersR. Knutti, D. W. Lea, L. J. Lourens, D. Lunt, V. Masson-Demotte, M. Medina-Elizalde, B. Otto-Bliesner, M. Pagani, H. Pälike, H. Renssen, D. L. Royer, M. Siddall, P. Valdes, J. C. Zachos, R. E. Zeebe

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

255 Scopus citations

Abstract

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 K W-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 CO2, which agrees with IPCC estimates.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)683-691
Number of pages9
JournalNature
Volume491
Issue number7426
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 29 2012

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