REVIEW ARTICLE How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?
Processes in the climate system that can either amplify or dampen the climate response to an external perturbation are referred to as climate feedbacks. Climate sensitivity estimates depend critically on radiative feedbacks associated with water vapor, lapse rate, clouds, snow, and sea ice, and glob...
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=10.1.1.409.3237 http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Bony_feedbacks.pdf |
Summary: | Processes in the climate system that can either amplify or dampen the climate response to an external perturbation are referred to as climate feedbacks. Climate sensitivity estimates depend critically on radiative feedbacks associated with water vapor, lapse rate, clouds, snow, and sea ice, and global estimates of these feedbacks differ among general circulation models. By reviewing recent observational, numerical, and theoretical studies, this paper shows that there has been progress since the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in (i) the understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in these feedbacks, (ii) the interpretation of intermodel differences in global estimates of these feedbacks |
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