Global Temperatures Could Rise More Than Expected, New Study Shows

Global Temperatures Could Rise More Than Expected, New Study Shows

Published: December 20, 2009

New Haven, Conn. — The kinds of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide taking place today could have a significantly larger effect on global temperatures than previously thought, according to a new study led by Yale University geologists. Their findings appear December 20 in the advanced online edition of Nature Geoscience.

The team demonstrated that only a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) was associated with a period of substantial warming in the mid- and early-Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago, when temperatures were approximately 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today.

Climate sensitivity—the mean global temperature response to a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO2—is estimated to be 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius, using current models.

“These models take into account only relatively fast feedbacks, such as changes in atmospheric water vapor and the distribution of sea ice, clouds and aerosols,” said Mark Pagani, associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale and lead author of the paper. “We wanted to look at Earth-system climate sensitivity, which includes the effects of long-term feedbacks such as change in continental ice-sheets, terrestrial ecosystems and greenhouse gases other than CO2.”

To do this, the team focused on the most recent episode of sustained global warmth with geography similar to today’s. Their reconstructed CO2 concentrations for the past five million years was used to estimate Earth-system climate sensitivity for a fully equilibrated state of the planet, and found that a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago. They also found that the global temperature was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than today while CO2 levels were only between about 365 and 415 parts per million (ppm)—similar to today’s concentration of about 386 ppm.

“This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in policy circles,” Pagani said. “Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level.”

Other authors of the paper include Zhonghui Liu (Yale University and The University of Hong Kong), and Jonathan LaRiviere and Ana Christina Ravelo (University of California, Santa Cruz).

This study used samples provided by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the http://www.climate.yale.edu/">Yale Climate and Energy Institute.

DOI: 10.1038/NGE0724

December 20, 2009

Global warming likely to be amplified by slow changes to Earth systems

By Tim Stephens (831) 459-2495; stephens@ucsc.edu

Researchers studying a period of high carbon dioxide levels and warm climate several million years ago have concluded that slow changes such as melting ice sheets amplified the initial warming caused by greenhouse gases.

The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels was associated with substantial global warming about 4.5 million years ago during the early Pliocene.

Coauthor Christina Ravelo, professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the study indicates that the sensitivity of Earth's temperature to increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is greater than has been expected on the basis of climate models that only include rapid responses.

Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to increased atmospheric and sea-surface temperatures. Relatively rapid feedbacks include changes in atmospheric water vapor, clouds, and sea ice. These short-term changes probably set in motion long-term changes in other factors--such as the extent of continental ice sheets, vegetation cover on land, and deep ocean circulation--that lead to additional global warming, Ravelo said.

"The implication is that these slow components of the Earth system, once they have time to change and equilibrate, may amplify the effects of small changes in the greenhouse gas composition of the atmosphere," she said.

The researchers used sediment cores drilled from the seafloor at six different locations around the world to reconstruct carbon dioxide levels over the past five million years. They found that during the early and middle Pliocene (3 to 5 million years ago), when average global temperatures were at least 2 to 3 degrees Celsius warmer than today, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was similar to today's levels, about 30 percent higher than preindustrial levels.

"Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held carbon dioxide concentrations at the current level," said lead author Mark Pagani, an associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University.

In addition to Pagani and Ravelo, the coauthors of the paper include Yale postdoctoral researcher Zhonghui Liu and UCSC graduate student Jonathan LaRiviere. The study used samples supplied by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and was funded by the National Science Foundation and supported by the Yale Climate and Energy Institute.

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