Indices of the factors that form climate changes of different scales

Abstract

Radiative forcing, the global warming potential, and the recently proposed global temperature potential are widely used not only in scientific studies but also in a number of economic and political evaluations of the effects of an increase in the contents of greenhouse gases and aerosols and other factors that form climate and its changes. New indices have appeared, and, to calculate them, information is required on the quantitative characteristics of the climate system’s components—current and expected—within standard periods of 20, 100, and 500 years. The calculations of some of these indices and potentials require consideration for variations in the rate of energy exchange between the atmosphere and the underlying surface (ocean) within the indicated periods. This leads to a more general problem of analyzing the sensitivity of the climate system to external (radiative) forcing and its response to such a forcing for the conditions of both stationary (equilibrium) and nonstationary “greenhouse” climates. A brief review of the few existing studies of such a response is given.