Reconciliation of Competing Climate Science and Policy Paradigms

摘要

Three developments, taken together, have important implications. 1 The current family of models is too hot throughout the tropical troposphere, which covers over 35 per cent of the surface, and that this is possibly a result of over-tuning to match the surface record. The vertical stratification of temperature, which controls upward motion (and therefore precipitation) is very far off in the upper troposphere. The result is that they are useless for reliable projections of future weather regimes, as almost all atmospheric moisture above the trade wind inversion originates in tropical convection that is controlled by the temperature stratification. From Lewis and Curry (2015)~3 2 Observationally-derived models more realistically simulate observed climate change and a lower prospective equilibrium climate sensitivity. 3 Cost-effective substitution of natural gas for coal, first in the United States, and then spreading throughout the world (with the exceptions noted above) will make the Paris 2.0° target attainable with relative ease, therefore harmonizing global warming science and policy. The natural gas revolution pretty much guarantees that most developed countries that use coal for electrical generation will gradually phase it out. (This includes coal-intensive China, where, as it becomes more affluent, the citizenry will surely demand cleaner air). Coupled with a lower sensitivity and the predicted linearity of future warming, this limits GHG-related warming to 2.0℃ by 2100. Note that the real GHG-related warming to date is not the figure used in the Paris calculations (is in Climate Action Tracker, 2015)~(l6), which assumes all warming since the industrial revolution is a result of GHGs. A lower sensitivity and large scale substation of natural gas for coal for electrical generation, and eventually for long-distance transport (BNSF railway is already experimenting with natural gas tenders) will constrain the warming of the remaining 82 years of this century to 1.5℃, yielding a total GHG-related warming of 2.0℃, and fulfilling the Paris agreement.%Paris Agreement; Climate Sensitivity; Global Warming