On Surface Temperature, Greenhouse Gases, and Aerosols: Models and Observations

Abstract

The effect of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and sulphate aerosols on near-surface temperature is investigated using a version of the Hadley Centre atmospheric model coupled to a mixed layer ocean. The scattering of sunlight by sulphate aerosols is represented by appropriately enhancing the surface albede. On doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, the global mean temperature increases by 5.2 K. An integration with a 39% increase in CO2, giving the estimated change in radiative heating due to increases in greenhouse gases since 1900, produced an equilibrium warming of 2.3 K, which, even allowing for oceanic inertia, is significantly higher than the observed warming over the same period. Furthermore, the simulation suggests a substantial warming everywhere, whereas the observations indicate isolated regions of cooling including parts of the northern midlatitude continents. The addition of an estimate of the effect of scattering by current industrial aerosols (uncertain by a factor of at least 3) leads to improved agreement with the observed pattern of changes over the northern continents and reduces the global mean warming by about 30%. Doubling the aerosol forcing produces patterns that are still compatible with the observations, but further increase leads to unrealistically extensive cooling in the midlatitudes. The diurnal range of surface temperature decreases over most of the northern extratropics on increasing CO2, in agreement with recent observations. The addition of the current industrial aerosol had little detectable effect on the diurnal range in the model because the direct effect of reduced solar heating at the surface is approximately balanced by the indirect effects of cooling. Thus, the ratio of the reduction in diurnal range to the mean warming is increased, in closer agreement with observations. Results from further sensitivity experiments with larger increases in aerosol and CO2 are presented. Although the aerosol forcing is a strong maximum in the northern midlatitudes in summer, the response is fairly even throughout the year because sea ice feedbacks amplify the cooling in winter. Increasing the aerosol loading produces a consistent increase in the globally averaged diurnal temperature range, associated with the mean reduction in temperature, though the diurnal range decreases slightly where the aerosol loading is greatest. The response to increased CO2 is compared with that in other models.