Impact of Changing Greenhouse Gas Concentrations on Ontario's Climate ...

• Main Author: van Wijngaarden, W. A.
• Format: Report
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2023
• Subjects: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph; FOS Physical sciences; Arctic; Antarctic; Antarc*; Climate change; Global warming; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2305.05500; https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.05500

The effect of changing greenhouse gas concentrations on climate was examined. Calculations of the climate sensitivity, the warming of the Earth due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, are discussed. Ontario was responsible for 0.35% of the world's CO2 emissions in 2019 and this amount was 20% lower than in 2005. The predictions of Global Climate Models (GCM) were compared to observations. Records since 1880 show an overall warming of about 1 C. The GCMs do not account for observed decadal temperature fluctuations and consistently overestimate the warming. Ontario's contribution to global warming is only 9.2 x 10^{-5} C/year using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommended climate sensitivity value. Measurements of the polar ice caps reveal a decrease in the minimum September Arctic sea ice extent during 1979-2022 but the trend levelled off after 2007; while the average Antarctic sea ice extent slightly increased. Sea level increased slightly throughout the 20th century. Ontario's contribution to ...