Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Mitigation of short-lived climate pollutants slows sea-level rise

Abstract

Under present growth rates of greenhouse gas and black carbon aerosol emissions, global mean temperatures can warm by as much as 2 °C from pre-industrial temperatures by about 20501,2. Mitigation of the four short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), methane, tropospheric ozone, hydrofluorocarbons and black carbon, has been shown to reduce the warming trend by about 50% (refs 1, 2) by 2050. Here we focus on the potential impact of this SLCP mitigation on global sea-level rise (SLR). The temperature projections under various SLCP scenarios simulated by an energy-balance climate model1 are integrated with a semi-empirical SLR model3, derived from past trends in temperatures and SLR, to simulate future trends in SLR. A coupled ocean–atmosphere climate model4 is also used to estimate SLR trends due to just the ocean thermal expansion. Our results show that SLCP mitigation can have significant effects on SLR. It can decrease the SLR rate by 24–50% and reduce the cumulative SLR by 22–42% by 2100. If the SLCP mitigation is delayed by 25 years, the warming from pre-industrial temperature exceeds 2 °C by 2050 and the impact of mitigation actions on SLR is reduced by about a third.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Observed and simulated global mean surface temperature.
Figure 2: SLR changes in different scenarios.

References

  1. Ramanathan, V. & Xu, Y. The Copenhagen Accord for limiting global warming: Criteria, constraints, and available avenues. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 8055–8062 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone (UNEP & WMO, 2011).

  3. Vermeer, M. & Rahmstorf, S. Global sea level linked to global temperature. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 21527–21532 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Gent, P. R. et al. The community climate system model version 4. J. Clim. 24, 4973–4991 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Forster, P. et al. in IPCC Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) Ch. 2 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Meehl, G. A. et al. in IPCC Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) Ch. 10 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Ramanathan, V. & Feng, Y. On avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system: Formidable challenges ahead. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 14245–14250 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Levitus, S. et al. World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change (0–2000 m), 1955–2010. Geophys. Res. Lett. 39, 1–5 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Gleckler, P. J. et al. Human-induced global ocean warming on multidecadal timescales. Nature Clim. Change 2, 524–529 10.1038/nclimate1553(2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Nakićenović, N. & Swart, R. (eds) IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000).

  11. Wallack, J. & Ramanthan, V. The other climate changers—Why black carbon and ozone also matter. Foreign Aff. 88, 105–113 (2009).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Molina, M. et al. Reducing abrupt climate change risk using the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 20616–20621 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Shindell, D. et al. Simultaneously mitigating near-term climate change and improving human health and food security. Science 335, 183–187 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Meehl, G. A. et al. Relative outcomes of climate change mitigation related to global temperature versus sea level rise. Nature Clim. Change 2, 576–580 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Peltier, W. R. Closure of the budget of global sea level rise over the GRACE era: The importance and magnitudes of the required corrections for global glacial isostatic adjustment. Quat. Sci. Rev. 28, 1658–1674 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Church, J. A. et al. Revisiting the Earth’s sea level and energy budgets from 1961 to 2008. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L18601 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Jacob, T. et al. Recent contributions of glaciers and ice caps to sea level rise. Nature 482, 514–518 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Stepherd, A. et al. A reconciled estimate of ice-sheet mass balance. Science 338, 1183–1189 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Hansen, J. et al. Global surface temperature change. Rev. Geophys. 48, 1–29 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Church, J. A. & White, N. J. A 20th-century acceleration in global sea-level rise. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L01602 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Cofala, J., Amann, M., Klimont, Z., Kupiainen, K. & Hoglund-Isaksson, L. Scenarios of global anthropogenic emissions of air pollutants and methane until 2030. Atmos Environ. 41, 8486–8499 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Church, J. A. & White, N. J. Sea-level rise from the late 19th to the early 21st century. Surv. Geophys. 32, 585–602 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Rahmstorf, S., Perrette, M. M. & Vermeer, M. Testing the robustness of semi-empirical sea level projections. Clim. Dyn. 39, 861–875 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Solomon, S., Plattner, G-K., Knutti, R. & Friedlingstein, P. Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 1704–1709 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Friedlingstein, P. Long-term climate implications of twenty-first century options for carbon dioxide emission mitigation. Nature Clim. Change 1, 457–461 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Pardaens, A. K., Gregory, J. M. & Lowe, J. A. A model study of factors influencing projected changes in regional sea level over the twenty-first century. Clim. Dyn. 36, 2015–2033 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Yin, J. Century to multi-century sea level rise projections from CMIP5 models. Geophys. Res. Lett. 39, L17709 10.1029/2012GL052947(2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Hu, A., Meehl, G. A., Han, W. & Yin, J. Effect of the potential melting of the Greenland ice sheet on the meridional overturning circulation and global climate in the future. Deep Sea Res. II 58, 1914–1926 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Mitrovica, J. X., Tamisiea, M. E., Davis, J. L. & Milne, G. A. Recent mass balance of polar ice sheets inferred from patterns of global sea level change. Nature 409, 1026–1029 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Kopp, R. E. et al. The impact of Greenland melt on regional sea level: A partially coupled analysis of dynamic and static equilibrium effects in idealized water-hosing experiments. Climatic Change 103, 619–625 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Science Foundation (ATM07-21142). A portion of this study was also supported by the Office of Science (BER), US Department of Energy, Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC02-97ER62402. The National Center for Atmospheric Research is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

V.R. designed and led the study, A.H., Y.X., C.T. and W.M.W. contributed to the model simulations and data analysis, and all authors actively contributed to writing the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Veerabhadran Ramanathan.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 1319 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hu, A., Xu, Y., Tebaldi, C. et al. Mitigation of short-lived climate pollutants slows sea-level rise. Nature Clim Change 3, 730–734 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1869

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1869

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing