Temperature change vs. cumulative radiative forcing as metrics for evaluating climate consequences of energy system choices

Alvarez et al. (1) proposed assessing the relative climate benefits of alternative energy technologies for policy purposes by comparing a time-integrated approximation to the radiative forcing produced by each alternative. In contrast, Myhrvold and Caldeira (2) propose comparing the change in global mean temperature that each alternative technology would produce under various schedules of deployment. Myhrvold and Caldeira (2) propose that temperature at some time t after deployment of the system can be approximated by a one-dimensional diffusive column, where T(t, z) is the temperature perturbation to the ocean at depth z at time t (cf. ref. 3). The upper boundary …