Quantifying the climate response to cumulative greenhouse gas emissions

量化气候对累积温室气体排放的反应

• 批准号: 341936-2012
• 负责人: Matthews, Damon
• 金额: $ 3.35万
• 依托单位: Concordia University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=572424
• 关键词: Quantifying; climate; response; cumulative; greenhouse

Global warming is one of the most important environmental challenges currently facing our generation. It has been clear for several decades that human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are driving a change in global temperatures, which will result in increasingly severe impacts on human and environmental systems. There are many aspects of the science of climate change, however, which are not well understood. In particular, there are substantial uncertainties with respect to how much of the greenhouse gases we emit remain in the atmosphere, as well as the amount by with those emissions influence the Earth's climate. Advancing our ability to measure the climate response to human greenhouse gas emissions is critical to efforts to decrease our impact on the climate system, as well as to prepare for the impacts of global warming. The overall objective of this research program is to expand and develop our understanding of how the climate system will respond to future greenhouse gas emissions. Recent research has identified a surprisingly linear climate response to cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide over time, which implies that each unit of carbon emitted leads to approximately the same increase in global temperature. In this proposed research, I aim to better constrain the range of possible values for the climate response to cumulative carbon dioxide emissions, in an effort to decrease the uncertainty associated with current estimates. In addition, I plan to extend estimates of the climate response to cumulative emissions to include emissions of other greenhouse gas and aerosols. Finally, I will develop a framework to estimate a range of projected climate impacts as a direct function of future cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. Improving our ability to measure the climate response to cumulative greenhouse gas emissions has the potential to advance our understanding of how human activities are affecting the climate system. The climate response to cumulative emissions represents a simple, yet powerful lens, through which to better predict both the magnitude and impacts of future global climate changes.

全球变暖是我们这一代人目前面临的最重要的环境挑战之一。几十年来，人类排放的二氧化碳和其他温室气体正在推动全球气温的变化，这将对人类和环境系统造成日益严重的影响。 然而，气候变化科学的许多方面还没有得到很好的理解。 特别是，我们排放的温室气体中有多少留在大气中，以及这些排放量对地球气候的影响，都存在很大的不确定性。 提高我们衡量人类温室气体排放对气候反应的能力，对于减少我们对气候系统的影响以及为全球变暖的影响做好准备至关重要。 这项研究计划的总体目标是扩大和发展我们对气候系统将如何应对未来温室气体排放的理解。 最近的研究发现，随着时间的推移，二氧化碳的累积排放量对气候的反应呈惊人的线性，这意味着每排放一单位的碳都会导致全球温度上升大约相同。 在这项拟议的研究中，我的目标是更好地限制气候对累积二氧化碳排放的响应的可能值的范围，以减少与当前估计相关的不确定性。 此外，我计划将气候响应的估计扩展到累积排放，以包括其他温室气体和气溶胶的排放。 最后，我将开发一个框架，以估计一系列预测的气候影响，作为未来累积温室气体排放的直接函数。 提高我们衡量气候对累积温室气体排放的反应的能力，有可能促进我们对人类活动如何影响气候系统的理解。气候对累积排放量的反应是一个简单而强大的透镜，通过它可以更好地预测未来全球气候变化的规模和影响。