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Dependence of the land‐sea contrast in surface climate response on the nature of the forcing
Author(s) -
Joshi Manoj,
Gregory Jonathan
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2008gl036234
Subject(s) - forcing (mathematics) , radiative forcing , climatology , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , climate change , sea surface temperature , climate model , latitude , volcano , geology , oceanography , seismology , geodesy
The land‐sea contrast in surface warming is a phenomenon of both transient and equilibrium climate change. Its magnitude, while model‐dependent, is invariant with forcing amplitude. Here we demonstrate that the land‐sea contrast is dependent on whether the climate forcing is mainly caused by changes to CO 2 or other mechanisms such as solar or volcanic forcing: this is mainly because a CO 2 change affects stomatal conductance in plants, and therefore changes the amount of evaporation from regions with vegetation present. In addition, solar or volcanic radiative forcing has a different latitudinal distribution to CO 2 forcing: when this effect is removed by normalising the land temperature response by the average ocean temperature response at the same latitude, spatial differences between the CO 2 forced run and the solar forced run become more apparent. Our results affect prediction of the land/sea contrast, as well as the interpretation of proxy climate data.