Tag Archives: ECS

Doubling down?

I wrote a post a little while ago commenting on a Sabine Hossenfelder video suggesting that she was now worried about climate change because the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) could be much higher than most estimates have suggested. I wasn’t … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Philosophy for Bloggers, Policy, Scientists | Tagged , , , , | 76 Comments

Some more about Hansen et al.

I thought I would expand a bit on my previous post about the recent Hansen et al. paper. Something I did like is that the paper highlighted that there is no known paleoclimate analogues for the current anthropogenic forcing pathway. … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Research | Tagged , , , | 20 Comments

Hansen’s 10C

A recent comment asked about James Hansen’s recent paper in which it is claimed that equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG level is 10°C. I’ve finally had a chance to look at it and I think I understand what is … Continue reading

Posted in Climate sensitivity, Research, Scientists | Tagged , , , , | 70 Comments

The Last Glacial Maximum

There’s an interesting paper by Seltzer et al. called [w]idespread six degrees Celsius cooling on land during the Last Glacial Maximum, which I became aware of through a Twitter thread by Werner Aeschbach. The reason it’s interesting is that it … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Global warming, Research | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Climate sensitivity – narrowing the range

Since I’ve discussed climate sensitivity on a number of occasions, it seems worth highlighting the new paper that assesses climate sensitivity using multiple lines of evidence. The authors include many who will be familiar to my regular readers. The key … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Philosophy for Bloggers, Research, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 98 Comments

Can climate sensitivity be really high?

The answer to the question in my post title is – unfortunately – yes. The generally accepted likely range for equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is 2oC – 4.5oC. This doesn’t mean that it has to fall within this range, it … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Research, Science, The philosophy of science | Tagged , , , , | 36 Comments

Another CMIP6 climate sensitivity constraint

I thought I would follow up yesterday’s post with one that highlights another paper that looks at CMIP6 climate sensitivity. It’s a paper by Femke Nijsse, and colleagues, and considers [a]n emergent constraint on Transient Climate Response from simulated historical … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Philosophy for Bloggers, Research, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 139 Comments

Climate sensitivity in CMIP6 GCMs

Anyone who is aware of what’s going on in climate science should have heard that the latest generation of climate models, known as CMIP6, seem to be suggesting a somewhat higher climate sensitivity than suggested by the previous CMIP5 models. … Continue reading

Posted in Climate sensitivity, Gavin Schmidt, Research, Scientists, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , , | 63 Comments

Climate sensitivity and decadal temperature variability

There are some who argue that natural/internal variability can play a role in driving long-term warming, and – hence – could explain a substantial fraction of recent warming. This, however, creates a bit of a paradox; if the system responds … Continue reading

Posted in Climate sensitivity, Research, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 80 Comments

An attempt to do a Bayesian estimate of climate sensitivity

Update (02/04/2019): I’ve updated this in a new post. The updated result suggests a slightly lower climate sensitivity and a narrower range. The main difference is – I think – how I was handling the forcing uncertainty. In this post, … Continue reading

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, Research | Tagged , , , , , , , | 50 Comments