Open AccessResearch Spotlight: Climate commitment in an uncertain world
Author(s) -
Tretkoff Ernie
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2011eo080023
Subject(s) - greenhouse gas , planet , atmosphere (unit) , environmental science , climate change , global warming , methane , greenhouse effect , runaway climate change , carbon dioxide , atmospheric sciences , climatology , meteorology , geography , geology , effects of global warming , oceanography , ecology , physics , astrophysics , biology
Even if humans immediately ceased emitting carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gases, the planet would continue to warm, mainly due to thermal inertia of the world's oceans. This “climate commitment” has been of interest recently for both science and policy because it provides a measure of the minimum climate change the planet will face given human activity that has already occurred. Several studies have looked at what would happen if human emission of CO 2 were halted, but these studies have overlooked the role of aerosols and non‐CO 2 greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, which Armour and Roe include in a new study. If human emission stopped, atmospheric aerosols, which cool the planet by blocking light from the surface, would fall to preindustrial levels within weeks. However, non‐CO 2 greenhouse gases would remain in the atmosphere for decades to centuries, and elevated levels of CO 2 would persist for millennia. ( Geophysical Research Letters , doi:10.1029/2010GL045850, 2011)