Global warming due to loss of large ice masses and Arctic summer sea ice
- Several large-scale cryosphere elements such as the Arctic summer sea ice, the mountain glaciers, the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet have changed substantially during the last century due to anthropogenic global warming. However, the impacts of their possible future disintegration on global mean temperature (GMT) and climate feedbacks have not yet been comprehensively evaluated. Here, we quantify this response using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. Overall, we find a median additional global warming of 0.43 degrees C (interquartile range: 0.39-0.46 degrees C) at a CO2 concentration of 400 ppm. Most of this response (55%) is caused by albedo changes, but lapse rate together with water vapour (30%) and cloud feedbacks (15%) also contribute significantly. While a decay of the ice sheets would occur on centennial to millennial time scales, the Arctic might become ice-free during summer within the 21st century. Our findings imply an additional increase of the GMT on intermediate to long time scales. TheSeveral large-scale cryosphere elements such as the Arctic summer sea ice, the mountain glaciers, the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet have changed substantially during the last century due to anthropogenic global warming. However, the impacts of their possible future disintegration on global mean temperature (GMT) and climate feedbacks have not yet been comprehensively evaluated. Here, we quantify this response using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. Overall, we find a median additional global warming of 0.43 degrees C (interquartile range: 0.39-0.46 degrees C) at a CO2 concentration of 400 ppm. Most of this response (55%) is caused by albedo changes, but lapse rate together with water vapour (30%) and cloud feedbacks (15%) also contribute significantly. While a decay of the ice sheets would occur on centennial to millennial time scales, the Arctic might become ice-free during summer within the 21st century. Our findings imply an additional increase of the GMT on intermediate to long time scales. The disintegration of cryosphere elements such as the Arctic summer sea ice, mountain glaciers, Greenland and West Antarctica is associated with temperature and radiative feedbacks. In this work, the authors quantify these feedbacks and find an additional global warming of 0.43 degrees C.…
Author details: | Nico WunderlingORCiDGND, Matteo WilleitORCiD, Jonathan DongesORCiDGND, Ricarda WinkelmannORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18934-3 |
ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33110092 |
Title of parent work (English): | Nature Communications |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Place of publishing: | Berlin |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2020/10/27 |
Publication year: | 2020 |
Release date: | 2023/11/10 |
Volume: | 11 |
Issue: | 1 |
Article number: | 5177 |
Number of pages: | 14 |
Funding institution: | National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation (NSF) [1718550] |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Physik und Astronomie |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 53 Physik / 530 Physik |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Gold Open-Access |
DOAJ gelistet | |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |