Scientists led by the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and funded by NOAA with Nadir Jeevanjee from NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory as co-author have found that “climate responds to increases in carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide itself becomes a more potent greenhouse gas,” said Brian Loden, lead author of the study published in the journal Science.
Climate change is more complicated than previously thought. We are flying blind into catatstrophe.
From the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science presser.
In this study, the researchers used state-of-the-art climate models and other tools to analyze the effect increasing CO2 has on a region of the upper atmosphere — known as the stratosphere — that scientists have long known cools with increasing CO2 concentrations. They found that this stratosphere cooling causes subsequent increases in CO2 to have a larger heat-trapping effect than previous increases, causing carbon dioxide to become more potent as a greenhouse gas.
The amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere from a proportionate increase in CO2, which scientists refer to as radiative forcing, has long been thought of as a constant that does not change over time.
“This new finding shows that the radiative forcing is not constant but changes as the climate responds to increases in carbon dioxide,” said Ryan Kramer, a physical scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and alumnus of the Rosenstiel School.
Carbon dioxide leads to global warming by trapping heat energy in the climate system.
“Future increases in CO2 will provide a more potent warming effect on climate than an equivalent increase in the past,” said the study’s lead author Haozhe He, who completed the work as part of his Ph.D. studies at the Rosenstiel School. “This new understanding has significant implications for interpreting both past and future climate changes and implies that high CO2 climates may be intrinsically more sensitive than low CO2 climates.”
