Defining the time and spatial scale of climate response to CO2 changes

Abstract

The goal of this research is to investigate the response of climate system to both temporal and spatial variations in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. In the first part the response function of the atmosphere has been defined and the typical time scale involved in the fast response of the system to variations in the CO2 forcing has been evaluated. In the second part the effects of a set of localized and stationary anomalies of CO2 concentration on the state of the atmosphere have been detected with a set of GCM experiments, and further investigated with a set of linearized experiments. In order to perform these linearized experiments, a new linear version of the Eulerian Dynamical Core of CAM (Community Atmosphere Model) has been proposed. The linearized experiments have allowed to assess which forcing region, among the ones considered, is particularly effective in terms of both amplitude and spatial extent of the response.