Natural variability, radiative forcing and climate response in the recent hiatus reconciled

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Natural variability, radiative forcing and climate response in the recent hiatus reconciled

Nature Geoscience
(2014)
doi:10.1038/ngeo2228
Received
06 March 2014
Accepted
17 July 2014
Published online
17 August 2014

Global mean surface warming over the past 15 years or so has been less than in earlier decades and than simulated by most climate models1. Natural variability2, 3, 4, a reduced radiative forcing5, 6, 7, a smaller warming response to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations8, 9 and coverage bias in the observations10 have been identified as potential causes. However, the explanations of the so-called ‘warming hiatus’ remain fragmented and the implications for long-term temperature projections are unclear. Here we estimate the contribution of internal variability associated with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) using segments of unforced climate model control simulations that match the observed climate variability. We find that ENSO variability analogous to that between 1997 or 1998 and 2012 leads to a cooling trend of about −0.06 °C. In addition, updated solar and stratospheric aerosol forcings from observations explain a cooling trend of similar magnitude (−0.07 °C). Accounting for these adjusted trends we show that a climate model of reduced complexity with a transient climate response of about 1.8 °C is consistent with the temperature record of the past 15 years, as is the ensemble mean of the models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). We conclude that there is little evidence for a systematic overestimation of the temperature response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the CMIP5 ensemble.

At a glance

Figures

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  1. Estimating the contribution of internal variability to recent temperature trends.
    Figure 1
  2. Updated radiative forcings from solar irradiance and stratospheric aerosols and their impact on the recent temperature trends.
    Figure 2
  3. Simulated global temperature adjusted with revised radiative forcings and the effect of internal variability.
    Figure 3

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

    • Markus Huber &
    • Reto Knutti

Contributions

M.H. performed the climate model computations and analysis. Both authors designed the study and wrote the paper.

Competing financial interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to:

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