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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L23825, doi:10.1029/2005GL024452, 2005

Constraints on climate change from a multi-thousand member ensemble of simulations

C. Piani

Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK


D. J. Frame

Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK


D. A. Stainforth

Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK


M. R. Allen

Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK


Abstract

The first multi thousand member “perturbed physics” ensemble simulation of present and future climate, completed by the distributed computing project climateprediction.net, is used to search for constraints on the response to increasing greenhouse gas levels among present day observable climate variables. The search is conducted with a systematic statistical methodology to identify correlations between observables and the quantities we wish to predict, namely the climate sensitivity and the climate feedback parameter. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to ensure that results are minimally dependent on the parameters of the methodology. Our best estimate of climate sensitivity is 3.3 K. When an internally consistent representation of the origins of model-data discrepancy is used to calculate the probability density function of climate sensitivity, the 5th and 95th percentiles are 2.2 K and 6.8 K respectively. These results are sensitive, particularly the upper bound, to the representation of the origins of model-data discrepancy.

Received 2 September 2005; accepted 3 November 2005; published 15 December 2005.

Index Terms: 3305 Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability (1616, 1635, 3309, 4215, 4513); 3337 Atmospheric Processes: Global climate models (1626, 4928); 3245 Mathematical Geophysics: Probabilistic forecasting (3238).

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Citation: Piani, C., D. J. Frame, D. A. Stainforth, and M. R. Allen (2005), Constraints on climate change from a multi-thousand member ensemble of simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L23825, doi:10.1029/2005GL024452.