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AGCI workshops provide a much-needed forum to bring together natural and social scientists – ecologists, oceanographers, atmospheric chemists, and climate experts along with political scientists, population dynamicists, anthropologists, sociologists, and educators – enabling them to work together at the cutting edge of a variety of topics of critical importance in the global change arena.
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Climate Sensitivity on Decadal to Century Timescales: Implications for Civilization
20 May - 25 May 2012
AGCI's upcoming workshop explores the implications of the longer term response of the Earth to elevated co2 and the implications for civilization. Scientists characterize the response of the Earth's global average temperature to a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels as the Earth's climate sensitivity. For over twenty years the value for climate sensitivity utilized in most climate models is in the range of 1.5 to 4.5 deg C. Socio-economic scenarios for this century utilized by the IPCC provide estimates of future radiatively important emissions to drive a set of climate models to produce a climate response by the end of the century of between 1.8 to 4.0 deg C. When longer timeframes are considered there are strong indications from the record of the Earth's past that additional feedback mechanisms come into play that build upon the fast feedbacks of this century yielding a greater climate sensitivity and significantly higher global average temperature. These so called slow feedbacks include changes in glacial ice, release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing of permafrost land areas, and release of methane from continental shelf deposits. The consequence of this for the biosphere -- its ecosystem and services -- places civilization in unchartered territory beyond the scope of the usually discussed mitigation and adaption strategies. Given this more dramatic scale of change humanity is possibly facing, what are appropriate responses? An interdisciplinary group designed to provide insight into the physical climate, biological interactions, and socio-economic ramifications of this question will assemble in May to explore this question and report on their findings. View
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