Modelling the climate response to greenhouse gas emissions: characteristics and policy implications

在过去十年中，气候建模的一个重大进展是将碳循环纳入模型。这些“地球系统”或“气候-碳循环耦合模型”代表了从二氧化碳（CO2）排放到气候变化的整个因果链，同时考虑到气候与碳循环之间的相互作用。最近对这些模型的研究表明，即使在任何时候停止排放，由人类造成的二氧化碳排放造成的气候变化也可能持续许多世纪。此外，这些研究表明，未来全球变暖的量取决于释放到大气中的CO2的累积量。这些发现的一个含义是，气候目标，如广泛倡导的2 C目标，可以用累计碳排放量来表示。

A major advance in climate modelling over the last decade has been the incorporation of the carbon cycle into models. These "Earth system" or "coupled climate-carbon cycle models" represent the entire causal chain from carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to climate change, taking into account the interactions between climate and the carbon cycle. Recent studies with these models have shown that climate change caused by human-caused CO2 emissions may persist for many centuries even if emissions were to be halted at any point in time. Further, such studies have shown that the amount of future global warming is determined by the accumulated amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. One implication of these findings is that climate targets, such as the widely advocated 2 C target, can be expressed in terms of accumulated carbon emissions.