How much more global warming and sea level rise?

Two global coupled climate models show that even if the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had been stabilized in the year 2000, we are already committed to further global warming of about another half degree and an additional 320% sea level rise caused by thermal expansion by the end of the 21st century. Projected weakening of the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean does not lead to a net cooling in Europe. At any given point in time, even if concentrations are stabilized, there is a commitment to future climate changes that will be greater than those we have already observed.     

Global climate change and intensification of coastal ocean upwelling

A mechanism exists whereby global greenhouse warning could, by intensifying the alongshore wind stress on the ocean surface, lead to acceleration of coastal upwelling. Evidence from several different regions suggests that the major coastal upwelling systems of the world have been growing in upwelling intensity as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the earth's atmosphere. Thus the cool foggy summer conditions that typify the coastlands of northern California and other similar upwelling regions might, under global warming, become even more pronounced. Effects of enhanced upwelling on the marine ecosystem are uncertain but potentially dramatic.     

The radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening

Climate models predict that the concentration of water vapor in the upper troposphere could double by the end of the century as a result of increases in greenhouse gases. Such moistening plays a key role in amplifying the rate at which the climate warms in response to anthropogenic activities, but has been difficult to detect because of deficiencies in conventional observing systems. We use satellite measurements to highlight a distinct radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening over the period 1982 to 2004. The observed moistening is accurately captured by climate model simulations and lends further credence to model projections of future global warming.     

温室气体全球增温潜能的研究进展

由于人类活动的影响,温室气体的浓度在大气中大量增加,对全球气候造成了不可忽视的影响。目前,主要采用全球增温潜能的评估方法对温室气体的气候效应进行研究。综合评述了温室气体的全球增温潜能及其相关研究,并提出该领域的研究中尚待解决的一些问题,展望了未来研究的方向。     

Detecting climatic change signals: are there any "fingerprints"?

Projected changes in the Earth's climate can be driven from a combined set of forcing factors consisting of regionally heterogeneous anthropogenic and natural aerosols and land use changes, as well as global-scale influences from solar variability and transient increases in human-produced greenhouse gases. Thus, validation of climate model projections that are driven only by increases in greenhouse gases can be inconsistent when one attempts the validation by looking for a regional or time-evolving "fingerprint" of such projected changes in real climatic data. Until climate models are driven by time-evolving, combined, multiple, and heterogeneous forcing factors, the best global climatic change "fingerprint" will probably remain a many-decades average of hemi-spheric- to global-scale trends in surface air temperatures. Century-long global warming (or cooling) trends of 0.5 degrees C appear to have occurred infrequently over the past several thousand years-perhaps only once or twice a millennium, as proxy records suggest. This implies an 80 to 90 percent heuristic likelihood that the 20th-century 0.5 +/- 0.2 degrees C warming trend is not a wholly natural climatic fluctuation.     

Causes of climate change over the past 1000 years

Recent reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures and climate forcing over the past 1000 years allow the warming of the 20th century to be placed within a historical context and various mechanisms of climate change to be tested. Comparisons of observations with simulations from an energy balance climate model indicate that as much as 41 to 64% of preanthropogenic (pre-1850) decadal-scale temperature variations was due to changes in solar irradiance and volcanism. Removal of the forced response from reconstructed temperature time series yields residuals that show similar variability to those of control runs of coupled models, thereby lending support to the models' value as estimates of low-frequency variability in the climate system. Removal of all forcing except greenhouse gases from the approximately 1000-year time series results in a residual with a very large late-20th-century warming that closely agrees with the response predicted from greenhouse gas forcing. The combination of a unique level of temperature increase in the late 20th century and improved constraints on the role of natural variability provides further evidence that the greenhouse effect has already established itself above the level of natural variability in the climate system. A 21st-century global warming projection far exceeds the natural variability of the past 1000 years and is greater than the best estimate of global temperature change for the last interglacial.     

Twentieth-Century Sea Surface Temperature Trends

An analysis of historical sea surface temperatures provides evidence for global warming since 1900, in line with land-based analyses of global temperature trends, and also shows that over the same period, the eastern equatorial Pacific cooled and the zonal sea surface temperature gradient strengthened. Recent theoretical studies have predicted such a pattern as a response of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system to an exogenous heating of the tropical atmosphere. This pattern, however, is not reproduced by the complex ocean-atmosphere circulation models currently used to simulate the climatic response to increased greenhouse gases. Its presence is likely to lessen the mean 20th-century global temperature change in model simulations.     

Simulation of early 20th century global warming

The observed global warming of the past century occurred primarily in two distinct 20-year periods, from 1925 to 1944 and from 1978 to the present. Although the latter warming is often attributed to a human-induced increase of greenhouse gases, causes of the earlier warming are less clear because this period precedes the time of strongest increases in human-induced greenhouse gas (radiative) forcing. Results from a set of six integrations of a coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model suggest that the warming of the early 20th century could have resulted from a combination of human-induced radiative forcing and an unusually large realization of internal multidecadal variability of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. This conclusion is dependent on the model's climate sensitivity, internal variability, and the specification of the time-varying human-induced radiative forcing.     

稻田温室气体（CH4和N2O）排放影响因素及其减排措施研究进展

甲烷(CH4)和氧化亚氮(N2O)是重要的两种温室气体,近一个世纪以来,大气中这两种气体浓度持续升高,进而引起温室效应明显加剧和气候变暖等极端气候的频繁出现.稻田生态系统是大气CH4和N2O的重要源.稻田温室气体的排放受土壤性质、气候条件及人为活动等因素的交互作用和综合调控,CH4和N2O排放量与各因素的变异程度、敏感程度密切相关.全面综述了影响稻田温室气体排放的因子及温室气体减排措施的研究进展,可为制定我国稻田温室气体减排措施、促进农业可持续发展以及生态环境协调发展提供参考.     

Climate response times: dependence on climate sensitivity and ocean mixing

The factors that determine climate response times were investigated with simple models and scaling statements. The response times are particularly sensitive to (i) the amount that the climate response is amplified by feedbacks and (ii) the representation of ocean mixing. If equilibrium climate sensitivity is 3 degrees C or greater for a doubling of the carbon dioxide concentration, then most of the expected warming attributable to trace gases added to the atmosphere by man probably has not yet occurred. This yet to be realized warming calls into question a policy of "wait and see" regarding the issue of how to deal with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and other trace gases.     

中国北方森林和草地生态系统碳氮耦合循环与碳源汇效应研究

全球变化自20世纪80年代以来作为一个科学问题开始出现,现今已超越科学领域,成为影响当今世界发展的重大政治、经济和外交问题。在科技部的 “十三五”期间“全球变化及应对”重点研发计划专项支持下,来自中国科学院沈阳应用生态研究所、西北农林科技大学、中国科学院植物研究所等6个单位31位科学家于2016年7月开始承担“中国北方森林和草地生态系统碳氮耦合循环与碳源汇效应研究”项目。该项目旨在:1)凸显中国北方植物群落演替在温室气体吸收和排放平衡,特别是在我国未来碳汇中的作用;2)绘制森林和草地碳源汇转变的敏感区、脆弱区;3)建立和发展稳定同位素技术研究碳氮循环的多时间序列历史变化及其对全球氮沉降、大气CO2浓度上升和气候变化的响应;4)揭示氮沉降、升温、火干扰和植被演替驱动的碳氮耦合循环生物学机制及其碳源汇响应。通过该项目5年的实施,预期能增加我国北方森林和草地生态系统碳氮耦合循环生物学机制的认识,增强对北方森林和草地生态系统对全球变化响应的预测能力和减少预测的不确定性。      

Human-induced Arctic moistening

The Arctic and northern subpolar regions are critical for climate change. Ice-albedo feedback amplifies warming in the Arctic, and fluctuations of regional fresh water inflow to the Arctic Ocean modulate the deep ocean circulation and thus exert a strong global influence. By comparing observations to simulations from 22 coupled climate models, we find influence from anthropogenic greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols in the space-time pattern of precipitation change over high-latitude land areas north of 55 degrees N during the second half of the 20th century. The human-induced Arctic moistening is consistent with observed increases in Arctic river discharge and freshening of Arctic water masses. This result provides new evidence that human activity has contributed to Arctic hydrological change.     

Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide

The global temperature rose by 0.2 degrees C between the middle 1960's and 1980, yielding a warming of 0.4 degrees C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980's. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.     

CLIMATE CHANGE: Lessons for a New Millennium

The climate changes believed to have occurred before this century have remained enigmatic, hampering our understanding of today's climatic changes. Reseachers trying to assess the human influence on the warming of the past century have commonly used complex ocean atmosphere models, but these models have their drawbacks. In his Perspective, Mann discusses a research article by Crowley, who has used a simple model driven by the most important natural and human-induced climate forcings to simulate climatic change over the last millennium. Comparing the model results with observations, Crowley makes what may be the most compelling case to date for the assertion that anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases are behind the dramatic continued warming of the globe.     

The greenhouse theory of climate change: a test by an inadvertent global experiment

Since the dawn of the industrial era, the atmospheric concentrations of several radiatively active gases have been increasing as a result of human activities. The radiative heating from this inadvertent experiment has driven the climate system out of equilibrium with the incoming solar energy. According to the greenhouse theory of climate change, the climate system will be restored to equilibrium by a warming of the surfacetroposphere system and a cooling of the stratosphere. The predicted changes, during the next few decades, could far exceed natural climate variations in historical times. Hence, the greenhouse theory of climate change has reached the crucial stage of verification. Surface warming as large as that predicted by models would be unprecedented during an interglacial period such as the present. The theory, its scope for verification, and the emerging complexities of the climate feedback mechanisms are discussed.     

乡村旅游产业链共生系统的特征及模式的演化和构建——以山西省为例

全球气候变暖的主要原因在于大气中碳浓度的急速升高。为应对全球气候变暖,以低碳为特征的新发展模式成为目前减少温室气体排放,应对全球气候变暖的根本途径。农业生态系统作为最大的人工生态系统,是重要的碳排放源之一。农业活动与气候变暖关系密切,农业生态系统已成为温室气体的第二大来源。本文以三峡库区为例,在分析了库区农业发展面临问题的基础上,探讨了库区发展低碳循环生态农业的意义,提出了库区低碳循环生态农业发展的一般模式及减少农业生产碳排放的五种对策,即推广免耕法、稻田水旱轮作,适度排水放干、发展以沼气为核心的农村新能源系统、发展高效生态循环种养农业和培育新型农民。     

土壤CH4产生机理及其排放的影响因素

CH4是引起全球变暖的温室气体之一,土壤是CH4的重要排放源和汇,土壤CH4的研究对控制CH4排放、延缓气候变暖具有重要意义。在介绍土壤CH4产生与排放机理的基础上,概述了土壤理化特性、土地利用方式、农业管理措施等对土壤CH4排放的影响,并在此基础上对土壤CH4及其他温室气体的研究进行了展望。     

玉米秸秆不同还田方式下麦田温室气体排放特征

为了探讨玉米秸秆不同还田方式对麦田温室气体排放的影响,通过田间试验,设玉米秸秆不还田(CK)、玉米秸秆直接还田(CS)、玉米秸秆过腹还田(CGS)和玉米秸秆转化为食用菌基质,出菇后菌渣还田(CMS)4个处理,利用静态箱-气相色谱法测定了玉米秸秆不同还田方式下,麦田温室气体(CO₂、N₂O和CH₄)的排放特征。结果表明:玉米秸秆不同还田方式下,麦田温室气体通量均具有明显的季节变化,且排放量不同。在小麦生长季,CO₂和N₂O均表现为排放,其排放量为CK >CGS >CS >CMS;甲烷表现为吸收,其吸收量为CS >CGS >CK >CMS,且不同处理间差异显著(P<0.05)。从温室气体综合增温潜势(GWP)来看,在20、100年和500年3个时间尺度上,仅玉米秸秆不同还田方式这一环节,GWP均表现为:CS >CGS >CK >CMS,也就是说秸秆直接还田,显著增加麦田温室气体的全球增温潜势,其次是玉米秸秆过腹还田方式,而秸秆-菌渣还田则降低了麦田温室气体的全球增温潜势。从减少温室气体排放角度,推荐秸秆-菌渣还田方式。该研究结果可为秸秆合理利用和温室气体减排提供基础数据。     

Anthropogenic warming of Earth's climate system

We compared the temporal variability of the heat content of the world ocean, of the global atmosphere, and of components of Earth's cryosphere during the latter half of the 20th century. Each component has increased its heat content (the atmosphere and the ocean) or exhibited melting (the cryosphere). The estimated increase of observed global ocean heat content (over the depth range from 0 to 3000 meters) between the 1950s and 1990s is at least one order of magnitude larger than the increase in heat content of any other component. Simulation results using an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model that includes estimates of the radiative effects of observed temporal variations in greenhouse gases, sulfate aerosols, solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols over the past century agree with our observation-based estimate of the increase in ocean heat content. The results we present suggest that the observed increase in ocean heat content may largely be due to the increase of anthropogenic gases in Earth's atmosphere.     

The impact of boreal forest fire on climate warming

We report measurements and analysis of a boreal forest fire, integrating the effects of greenhouse gases, aerosols, black carbon deposition on snow and sea ice, and postfire changes in surface albedo. The net effect of all agents was to increase radiative forcing during the first year (34 +/- 31 Watts per square meter of burned area), but to decrease radiative forcing when averaged over an 80-year fire cycle (-2.3 +/- 2.2 Watts per square meter) because multidecadal increases in surface albedo had a larger impact than fire-emitted greenhouse gases. This result implies that future increases in boreal fire may not accelerate climate warming.