Publications by authors named "Mark J Webb"

The concept of Earth's Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) is reviewed. A particular problem in quantifying plausible bounds for ECS has been how to account for all of the diverse lines of relevant scientific evidence. It is argued that developing and refuting physical storylines (hypotheses) for values outside any proposed range has the potential to better constrain these bounds and to help articulate the science needed to narrow the range further.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines how sensitive cloud feedbacks are to the removal of convective parametrizations in climate models, finding mixed results in their overall impact on cloud feedback ranges.
  • Despite turning off convection, the models still show a similar range of cloud feedbacks, suggesting that other processes also influence this variability.
  • The findings highlight that certain cloud feedback characteristics, like the positive feedback from shallow clouds, remain consistent even without parametrized convection, although differences in longwave feedback are reduced in regions with strong precipitation.
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In addition to influencing climatic conditions directly through radiative forcing, increasing carbon dioxide concentration influences the climate system through its effects on plant physiology. Plant stomata generally open less widely under increased carbon dioxide concentration, which reduces transpiration and thus leaves more water at the land surface. This driver of change in the climate system, which we term 'physiological forcing', has been detected in observational records of increasing average continental runoff over the twentieth century.

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Comprehensive global climate models are the only tools that account for the complex set of processes which will determine future climate change at both a global and regional level. Planners are typically faced with a wide range of predicted changes from different models of unknown relative quality, owing to large but unquantified uncertainties in the modelling process. Here we report a systematic attempt to determine the range of climate changes consistent with these uncertainties, based on a 53-member ensemble of model versions constructed by varying model parameters.

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