1. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System1

2. The Earth’s Climate System Challenges and Advances with Geologic Data and Modeling Partnerships Caspar M. Ammann National Center for Atmospheric Research, Climate and Global Dynamics Division ammann@ucar.edu Golden, Mar 14, 20092WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

3. International Geophysical Year 1957/58 “A very successful stimulus package for science” Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System3

4. IGY : Earth Science Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System4

5. Golden, Mar 14, 20095WIPS – The Earth's Climate System Geomagnetic and Dating Techniques open doors to Geologic Time

6. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System6 IGY: Weather / Climate

7. Weather / Storm forecasts Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System7

8. Other breakthroughs: Reconstruction of Ocean circulation, … Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System8

9. Golden, Mar 14, 2009January 14, 08 Last 10-20 yrs : Abrupt Earth System Change WIPS – The Earth's Climate System Holocene Quaternary Deep Time

10. Initiated / or accelerated by the IGY emerges a much more dynamic picture of the Earth System Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System10

11. True Global Reach of Humans AtmosphereOceans Golden, Mar 14, 200911WIPS – The Earth's Climate System "Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future.” Roger Revelle

12. Is this still simply a “geophysical experiment”? Greenhouse Gas Concentrations last 600,000 years IPCC 2007 Golden, Mar 14, 200912WIPS – The Earth's Climate System CO2 - 20,000 years Methane Temperature CO2 Rate of Change unprecedented for probably millions of years!

13. 3 Decades in Earth Observations and Change Golden, Mar 14, 200913WIPS – The Earth's Climate System IPCC 2007: “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (>90% confidence) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

14. Why is it not natural? Climate has always been changing, naturally … Golden, Mar 14, 200914WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

15. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 15 Tools to Study Effect of Change in CO 2 Climate Diagnostics and Analysis: Understand coupled Earth System with best observational data / Data Assimilation Climate Models: Help to sharpen understanding of geophysical processes PALEO: Using time perspective to test and corroborate Goal: Seamless understanding of Past-Present to build confidence in projections into the Future

16. Golden, Mar 14, 2009January 14, 08 Greenhouse Fingerprint Subsurface (Land/Ocean) Surface & Troposphere Middle Atmosphere WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

17. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 17 Changes Across Scales Global-wide Glacier Collapse 20031900 Effect on Extreme Precipitation Global Sea Level Rise

18. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 18 Viner (2002) Models are now “Partners” to Data Model Computation: - 15 minute time steps - 1 quadrillion calculations /yr ~150 km

19. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System19 Climate Models circa early 1990s Global coupled climate models in 2006 Regional models Global models in 5-10 yrs

20. WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 20 Continuously Improved Models CCSM: Climate Simulations

21. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System21 Performance of CCSM-3 Surface Air Temperature Model Observations El Niño-Variability Model Observations

22. High Resolution Ocean Models Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System22

23. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 23 Climate Modeler's Commandments by John Kutzbach (Univ. of Wisconsin) 1.Thou shalt not worship the climate model. 2.Thou shalt not worship the climate model, but thou shalt honor the climate modeler, that it might be well with thee. 3.Thou shalt use the model that is most appropriate for the question at hand. 4.Thou shalt not change more than one thing at a time at first. 5.In making sensitivity experiments, thou shalt hit the model hard enough to make it notice you. 6.Thou shalt not covet fine-scale results with a coarse-scale model. 7.Thou shalt follow the rules for significance testing and remember the model's inherent variability. 8.Thou shalt know the model's biases and remember that model biases may lead to biased sensitivity estimates. 9.Thou shalt run the same experiment with different models and compare the results. 10.Thou shalt worship good observations of the spatial and temporal behavior of the earth system. Good models follow such observations. One golden observation is worth a thousand simulations.

24. Forcings used in Models Present-day direct and indirect forcings Past Geographies LGM / LIG Eocene Cretaceous Late Permian Carboniferous Golden, Mar 14, 200924WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

25. Simulations of the 20th century: Time Meehl et al. 2004 All forcings Natural only Golden, Mar 14, 200925WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

26. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System26 Future Climate Projections Note: These are “What If” Scenarios, not predictions IPCC, 2007 A2: 2020s A2: 2090s

27. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 27 Simulation 20th and 21st Century Climate NCAR CCSM: Gary Strand Models reasonably reproduce changes in: Global and continental scale evolution of temperature Vertical temperature profile Atmospheric moisture Heat content of oceans sea ice retreat in all seasons …

28. Sea Ice : Observations and Model Projections 2000 ~2040 September Sea Ice Extent: Abrupt change potential! Golden, Mar 14, 200928WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

29. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 29 Are we over-blowing the problem? … most likely not …: - emissions faster than projected - carbon cycle and nutrients - speed of sea ice retreat? - melting on ice sheets? - weaker trends in models in some responses (precip)? - models in paleo applications: never quite the amplitude … Canadel et al. 2007

30. Ammann et al., 2007 Goal of seamless understanding Past-Present-Future Golden, Mar 14, 200930WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

31. Last Interglacial (~130 ka): +6m sea level Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System31

32. Golden, Mar 14, 2009January 14, 08 Importance of a “Seamless” Integration of Paleo into Climate Change Research How well do we understand the cause and magnitude of past changes? What effect on the Earth System did past changes have? Identify and study analogues to future Climate Change (PETM?, Cretaceous, …) Can we develop rigorous benchmarks for climate models on global and regional scales? … Goal: Further improve confidence in models projections regarding magnitude, spatial extent, hydrologic - environmental impact WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

33. Golden, Mar 14, 2009January 14, 08 Paleo Analogs for future temperatures? Future climates might resemble the past >40 Mio yr ago WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

34. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System34 What’s Next? ( AR5 ~2013?) Key Role for PALEO! ( 1 ) Long, multi-century projections to study Carbon Cycle Feedbacks, Sea Level Change ( 2 ) Very high-resolution simulations of the next 20-30 years for regional climate change prediction

35. Aerosols –Direct and indirect effects Chemistry –Radiative and air quality issues Dynamic Vegetation –Regrowth following disturbance, human landuse Carbon & Nitrogen Cycle –Ocean & land biogeochemistry –Anthropogenic (transient) land use/cover Land Ice Sheets –Sea level Rise & Abrupt Climate change Possible new CCSM Components for AR5 Golden, Mar 14, 200935WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

36. Future Sea Level and New Orleans (+1m) Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System36

37. New Focus on Regional Water Jan. 19, 2009Colorado School of Mines: Sustainability37

38. Changes in Seasonal Cycle of Snowmelt (T) and shifts in Jet-stream with change in Precip (P) Water from Snowpack in dry summer season? Golden, Mar 14, 200938WIPS – The Earth's Climate System Barnett et al. 2008

39. North American Precipitation and Hurricanes 36, 12 and 4 km domains nested into CCSM Multi-member ensembles for each period Dedicated time on NCAR IBM Power 6 (Bluefire) since July:  ~300 Tb of data (to date); 450 Tb total (including earlier runs) Golden, Mar 14, 200939WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

40. CCSP 2.1a Mitigation Simulations Golden, Mar 14, 200940WIPS – The Earth's Climate System

41. A modern science revolution with Models as Partners in Earth System Analysis: What important answers do we need from the past! Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System41 What can be learned about sensitivity of polar ice sheets? How quickly can sea level rise? How effective is the carbon cycle feedback? How much did the tropics or subtropics change? How does high atmospheric carbon affect ocean acidity, and how does acidity influence the ocean food chain?

42. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 42 Climate Change in Perspective 1.Climate has always been fluctuating, and we generally “know” why : Seamless perspective 2.Ongoing Climate Change is real and due to increase in Greenhouse Gas concentrations 3.Models have become partners to field-data and observations. Open questions could provide a platform for enhanced interaction and collaboration providing very important constraints and predictions for decision making 4.There is an urgent need for a constructive dialogue to address the “Great Global Challenge” between Energy Needs and Climate Change

43. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 43 The Great Challenge: Balancing Climate and Energy Needs Thank you!

44. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate System44

45. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 45 Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: A possible “analog” to study future impact on Earth System? Zachos et al. 2005

46. Golden, Mar 14, 2009WIPS – The Earth's Climate SystemSlide 46 Challenge: Polar Temperatures during Warm Climates (Equator - Pole Gradient : High latitude warm but tropics cool? A data or a model problem?) Proxy Record Models Future Present Huber and Sloan, 2001

47. Golden, Mar 14, 2009January 14, 08 Subtropical drying in with large scale warming? Can this fundamental concept be confirmed in past climates? WIPS – The Earth's Climate System