Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications
Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing humanmade greenhouse gases and aerosols among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing 0.85 ± 0.15 W/m 2 more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of increasing ocean heat co...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2005
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.393.794 http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/pdffiles/Hansen-04-29-05.pdf |
| Summary: | Our climate model, driven mainly by increasing humanmade greenhouse gases and aerosols among other forcings, calculates that Earth is now absorbing 0.85 ± 0.15 W/m 2 more energy from the Sun than it is emitting to space. This imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 years. Implications include: (i) expectation of additional global warming of about 0.6°C without further change of atmospheric composition; (ii) confirmation of the climate system’s lag in responding to forcings, implying the need for anticipatory actions to avoid any specified level of climate change; and (iii) likelihood of acceleration of ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise. Earth’s climate system has considerable thermal inertia. This point is of critical importance to policy and decision-makers |
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