Abstract
Abstract. This study presents a new methodology, called temperature tagging. It keeps track of the contributions of individual processes to temperature within a climate model simulation. As a first step and as a test bed, a simple box climate model is regarded. The model consists of an atmosphere, which absorbs and emits radiation, and of a surface, which reflects, absorbs and emits radiation. The tagging methodology is used to investigate the impact of the atmosphere on surface temperature. Four processes are investigated in more detail and their contribution to the surface temperature quantified: (i) shortwave influx and shortwave atmospheric absorption ("sw"), (ii) longwave atmospheric absorption due to non-CO2 greenhouse gases ("nC"), (iii) due to a base case CO2 concentration ("bC"), and (iv) due to an enhanced CO2 concentration ("eC"). The differential equation for the temperature in the box climate model is decomposed into four equations for the tagged temperatures. This method is applied to investigate the contribution of longwave absorption to the surface temperature (greenhouse effect), which is calculated to be 68 K. This estimate contrasts an alternative calculation of the greenhouse effect of slightly more than 30 K based on the difference of the surface temperature with and without an atmosphere. The difference of the two estimates is due to a shortwave cooling effect and a reduced contribution of the shortwave to the total downward flux: the shortwave absorption of the atmosphere results in a reduced net shortwave flux at the surface of 192 W m−2, leading to a cooling of the surface by 14 K. Introducing an atmosphere results in a downward longwave flux at the surface due to atmospheric absorption of 189 W m−2, which roughly equals the net shortwave flux of 192 W m−2. This longwave flux is a result of both the radiation due to atmospheric temperatures and its longwave absorption. Hence the longwave absorption roughly accounts for 91 W m−2 out of a total of 381 W m−2 (roughly 25%) and therefore accounts for a temperature change of 68 K. In a second experiment, the CO2 concentration is doubled, which leads to an increase in surface temperature of 1.2 K, resulting from a temperature increase due to CO2 of 1.9 K, due to non-CO2 greenhouse gases of 0.6 K and a cooling of 1.3 K due to a reduced importance of the solar heating for the surface and atmospheric temperatures. These two experiments show the feasibility of temperature tagging and its potential as a diagnostic for climate simulations.
Highlights
Whenever an extreme weather event happens, like the Russian heat wave in August 2010, the question is posed whether this heat wave is a consequence of climate change
Hansen et al (2012) investigated the likelihood that such an event happened in a world without climate change and concluded that this event is a consequence of global warming since its “likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.”
Dole et al (2011) showed that the Russian heat wave was primarily a consequence of a blocking event, a specific weather pattern not unusual for Russia. In ensemble simulations they showed that this blocking was not primarily caused by either greenhouse gases or sea surface temperatures and concluded that this specific weather event was solely caused by internal variability and that no anthropogenic influence was detected
Summary
Whenever an extreme weather event happens, like the Russian heat wave in August 2010, the question is posed whether this heat wave is a consequence of climate change. Such questions have been addressed in various ways. Dole et al (2011) showed that the Russian heat wave was primarily a consequence of a blocking event, a specific weather pattern not unusual for Russia In ensemble simulations they showed that this blocking was not primarily caused by either greenhouse gases or sea surface temperatures and concluded that this specific weather event was solely caused by internal variability and that no anthropogenic influence was detected. What both studies have in common is that they compare on a statistical
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
