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Emergent constraints on climate sensitivity

Nature volume 563, pages E4–E5 (2018)Cite this article

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arising from P. M. Cox, C. Huntingford & M. S. Williamson Nature 553, 319–322 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25450

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change1 (IPCC) has estimated the likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) to be 1.5–4.5 K. Recently, Cox et al.2 claimed to have reduced this uncertainty to a likely range of 2.2–3.4 K. However, we believe that their results are derived from incorrect physics and are sensitive to arbitrary methodological choices. The study therefore does not represent a credible constraint on either the IPCC likely range or the range observed in the selected set of climate models. There is a Reply to this Comment by Cox, P. M. et al. Nature 563, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0641-x (2018).

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Fig. 1: Analysis of the robustness of the emergent constraint on ECS.
Fig. 2: Dependence of the emergent constraint on the time period.

References

  1. Collins, M. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) Ch. 12 (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2013).

  2. Cox, P. M., Huntingford, C. & Williamson, M. S. Emergent constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity from global temperature variability. Nature 553, 319–322 (2018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, UiT—The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Martin Rypdal, Hege-Beate Fredriksen, Kristoffer Rypdal & Rebekka J. Steene

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  1. Martin Rypdal
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  2. Hege-Beate Fredriksen
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  3. Kristoffer Rypdal
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  4. Rebekka J. Steene
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Contributions

M.R., H.-B.F., K.R. and R.J.S. designed the study. H.-B.F. and R.J.S. collected data from the CMIP5 ensemble. M.R. and H.-B.F. performed the analyses. M.R., H.-B.F. and K.R. wrote the paper, with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Martin Rypdal.

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Rypdal, M., Fredriksen, HB., Rypdal, K. et al. Emergent constraints on climate sensitivity. Nature 563, E4–E5 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0639-4

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