Carbon Dioxide and Climate A Second Assessment (1982) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Pages 1-8
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
Observations reveal steadily increasing concentrations of CO2, and experiments with numerical climate models indicate that continued increase would eventually produce significant climatic change. Comprehensive assessment of the issue will require projection of future CO2 emissions and study of the disposition of this excess carbon in the atmosphere, ocean, and biota; the effect on climate; and the implications for human welfare.
|
From page 2... ...
Theoretical and empirical studies of the climatic effects of increased CO2 must properly account for all significant processes involved, notably changes in the tropospheric energy budget and the effects of ocean storage and atmospheric and oceanic transport of heat. For example, studies of the isolated surface energy balance or local observational studies of the transient response to short-term radiative changes can result in misleading conclusions.
|
From page 3... ...
The role of the ocean in time-dependent climatic response deserves special attention in future modeling studies, stressing the regional nature of oceanic thermal inertia and atmospheric energy-transfer mechanisms. Progress in understanding the ocean's role must be based on a broad program of research: continued observations of density distributions, tracers, heat fluxes, and ocean currents; quantitative elucidation of the mixing processes potentially involved; substantial theoretical effort; and development of models adequate to reproduce the relative magnitudes of a variety of competing effects.
|
From page 4... ...
One cannot even conclude that possible future anthropogenic changes in aerosol loading would produce worldwide heating or cooling, although carbon-containing Arctic aerosol definitely causes local atmospheric heating. Increased tropospheric aerosols could also influence cloud optical properties and thus modify cloudinessradiation feedback.
|
From page 5... ...
Because decisions of immense social and economic importance may be made on the basis of model experiments, it is important that a comprehensive climate-model validation effort be pursued, including the assembly of a wide variety of observational data specifically for model validation and the development of a validation methodology. Validation of climate models involves a hierarchy of tests, including checks on the internal behavior of subsystems of the model.
|
From page 6... ...
Improvement of our confidence in the ability of climate models to assess the climatic impacts of increased CO2 will require development of model validation methods, including determination of the models' statistical properties; assembly of standardized data for validation; development of observations to validate representations of physical processes; standardization of sensitivity tests; development of physical-dynamical and phenomenological diagnostic techniques focusing on changes specifically attributable to increased CO2; and use of information from planetary atmospheres, laboratory experiments, and especially contemporary and past climates (see below)
|
From page 7... ...
Improvement in the quality and resolution of geographical estimates of climatic change will require increased computational resolution in the mathematical models employed, improvement in the representation of the multitude of participating physical processes, better understanding of airflow over and around mountains, and extended time integration of climate models. It is clear, however, that local climate has a much larger temporal variability than climate averaged along latitude circles or over the globe.
|
From page 8... ...
However, scenarios based on contemporary data sets do not yet provide a firm basis for climatic assessment of possible CO2induced climatic changes, nor should they be considered adequate at present for validation of CO2 sensitivity studies with climate models. Studies of past climatic data are leading to important advances in climate theory.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.