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Forcing Dependence of Atmospheric Lapse Rate Changes Dominates Residual Polar Warming in Solar Radiation Management Climate Scenarios
Author(s) -
Henry Matthew,
Merlis Timothy M.
Publication year - 2020
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 - 10.1029/2020gl087929
Subject(s) - environmental science , lapse rate , atmospheric sciences , latitude , forcing (mathematics) , climate change , climatology , residual , global warming , greenhouse gas , polar , geology , physics , oceanography , geodesy , computer science , algorithm , astronomy
Simulations of solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering using comprehensive general circulation models show a residual surface warming at high latitudes. Previous work attributes this to the difference in forcing structure between the increase in greenhouse gases and decrease in insolation, but this neglects the role of the induced reduction in atmospheric energy transport. Here we show that the difference in vertical structure of temperature change between increasing CO 2 , decreasing insolation, and decreasing atmospheric energy transport is the dominant reason for the residual near‐surface warming at high latitudes. A single‐column model (SCM) is used to decompose the high‐latitude temperature change and shows the importance of the enhanced near‐surface warming from the CO 2 increase in explaining the residual polar warming. This suite of models invites caution when attributing high‐latitude surface temperature changes to the lapse rate feedback, as various forcings and nonlocal processes affect the vertical structure of temperature change differently.