Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates
Using an atmospheric general circulation model of intermediate complexity coupled to a sea ice – slab ocean model, we perform a number of sensitivity experiments under present-day orbital conditions and geographical distribution to assess the possibility that land albedo, atmospheric CO 2 , orograph...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:a42816ee86fa407e8741800f0f4fc795 2023-05-15T18:18:29+02:00 Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates V. Romanova G. Lohmann K. Grosfeld 2006-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doaj.org/article/a42816ee86fa407e8741800f0f4fc795 EN eng Copernicus Publications http://www.clim-past.net/2/31/2006/cp-2-31-2006.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9324 https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9332 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://doaj.org/article/a42816ee86fa407e8741800f0f4fc795 Climate of the Past, Vol 2, Iss 1, Pp 31-42 (2006) Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 article 2006 ftdoajarticles 2022-12-31T10:47:09Z Using an atmospheric general circulation model of intermediate complexity coupled to a sea ice – slab ocean model, we perform a number of sensitivity experiments under present-day orbital conditions and geographical distribution to assess the possibility that land albedo, atmospheric CO 2 , orography and oceanic heat transport may cause an ice-covered Earth. Changing only one boundary or initial condition, the model produces solutions with at least some ice-free oceans in the low latitudes. Using some combination of these forcing parameters, a full Earth's glaciation is obtained. We find that the most significant factor leading to an ice-covered Earth is the high land albedo in combination with initial temperatures set equal to the freezing point. Oceanic heat transport and orography play only a minor role for the climate state. Extremely low concentrations of CO 2 also appear to be insufficient to provoke a runaway ice-albedo feedback, but the strong deviations in surface air temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere point to the existence of a strong nonlinearity in the system. Finally, we argue that the initial condition determines whether the system can go into a completely ice covered state, indicating multiple equilibria, a feature known from simple energy balance models. Article in Journal/Newspaper Sea ice Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 |
spellingShingle |
Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 V. Romanova G. Lohmann K. Grosfeld Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates |
topic_facet |
Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 |
description |
Using an atmospheric general circulation model of intermediate complexity coupled to a sea ice – slab ocean model, we perform a number of sensitivity experiments under present-day orbital conditions and geographical distribution to assess the possibility that land albedo, atmospheric CO 2 , orography and oceanic heat transport may cause an ice-covered Earth. Changing only one boundary or initial condition, the model produces solutions with at least some ice-free oceans in the low latitudes. Using some combination of these forcing parameters, a full Earth's glaciation is obtained. We find that the most significant factor leading to an ice-covered Earth is the high land albedo in combination with initial temperatures set equal to the freezing point. Oceanic heat transport and orography play only a minor role for the climate state. Extremely low concentrations of CO 2 also appear to be insufficient to provoke a runaway ice-albedo feedback, but the strong deviations in surface air temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere point to the existence of a strong nonlinearity in the system. Finally, we argue that the initial condition determines whether the system can go into a completely ice covered state, indicating multiple equilibria, a feature known from simple energy balance models. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
V. Romanova G. Lohmann K. Grosfeld |
author_facet |
V. Romanova G. Lohmann K. Grosfeld |
author_sort |
V. Romanova |
title |
Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates |
title_short |
Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates |
title_full |
Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates |
title_fullStr |
Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates |
title_full_unstemmed |
Effect of land albedo, CO 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates |
title_sort |
effect of land albedo, co 2 , orography, and oceanic heat transport on extreme climates |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2006 |
url |
https://doaj.org/article/a42816ee86fa407e8741800f0f4fc795 |
genre |
Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Sea ice |
op_source |
Climate of the Past, Vol 2, Iss 1, Pp 31-42 (2006) |
op_relation |
http://www.clim-past.net/2/31/2006/cp-2-31-2006.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9324 https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9332 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://doaj.org/article/a42816ee86fa407e8741800f0f4fc795 |
_version_ |
1766195063917903872 |