Identification

Title

Climates of the 20th and 21st centuries simluated by the NCAR Climate System Model

Abstract

The Climate System Model, a coupled global climate model without "flux adjustments" recently developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, was used to simulate the twentieth-century climate using historical greenhouse gas and sulfate aerosol forcing. This simulation was extended through the twenty-first century under two newly developed scenarios, a business-as-usual case (ACACIA-BAU, CO2 ≈ 710 ppmv in 2100) and a CO2 stabilization case (STA550, CO2 ≈ 540 ppmv in 2100). Here we compare the simulated and observed twentieth-century climate, and then describe the simulated climates for the twenty-first century. The model simulates the spatial and temporal variations of the twentieth-century climate reasonably well. These include the rapid rise in global and zonal mean surface temperatures since the late 1970s, the precipitation increases over northern mid- and high-latitude land areas, ENSO-induced precipitation anomalies, and Pole-midlatitude oscillations (such as the North Atlantic oscillation) in sea level pressure fields. The model has a cold bias (2°-6°C) in surface air temperature over land, overestimates of cloudiness (by 10%-30%) over land, and underestimates of marine stratus clouds to the west of North and South America and Africa. The projected global surface warming from the 1990s to the 2090s is ~1.9°C under the BAU scenario and ~1.5°C under the STA550 scenario. In both cases, the midstratosphere cools due to the increase in CO2, whereas the lower stratosphere warms in response to recovery of the ozone layer. As in other coupled models, the surface warming is largest at winter high latitudes (≥5.0°C from the 1990s to the 2090s) and smallest (~1.0°C) over the southern oceans, and is larger over land areas than ocean areas. Globally averaged precipitation increases by 3.5% (~3.0%) from the 1990s to the 2090s in the BAU (STA550) case. In the BAU case, large precipitation increases (up to 50%) occur over northern mid- and high latitudes and over India and the Arabian Peninsula. Marked differences occur between the BAU and STA550 regional precipitation changes resulting from interdecadal variability. Surface evaporation increases at all latitudes except for 60°-90°S. Water vapor from increased tropical evaporation is transported into mid- and high latitudes and returned to the surface through increased precipitation there. Changes in soil moisture content are small (within ±3%). Total cloud cover changes little, although there is an upward shift of midlevel clouds. Surface diurnal temperature range decreases by about 0.2°-0.5°C over most land areas. The 2-8-day synoptic storm activity decreases (by up to 10%) at low latitudes and over midlatitude oceans, but increases over Eurasia and Canada. The cores of subtropical jets move slightly up- and equatorward. Associated with reduced latitudinal temperature gradients over mid- and high latitudes, the wintertime Ferrel cell weakens (by 10%-15%). The Hadley circulation also weakens (by ~10%), partly due to the upward shift of cloudiness that produces enhanced warming in the upper troposphere.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7gb24md

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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date type

publication

effective date

2001-02-01T00:00:00Z

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Use constraints

Copyright 2001 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license form the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy, available on the AMS Web site located at (http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS) or from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or copyright@ametsoc.org.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

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