The 2015 Paris Agreement sets out a global action plan to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C, whilst pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
However, predicting how the climate will change over the next 20-50 years, as well as defining emissions pathways to keep the world on track, requires a better understanding of how several human and natural factors will affect the climate in coming decades. These include how atmospheric aerosols affect the Earth’s radiation budget, and the roles of clouds and oceans in driving climate change.
CONSTRAIN, a consortium of 14 European partners, is investigating these factors, feeding them into climate models to reduce uncertainties in, and create improved climate projections for, the next 20-50 years, on regional as well as global scales.
It is also translating this new scientific understanding into an improved and up-to-date evidence base aimed at informing international climate policy, and supporting decisions on climate mitigation and adaptation.
CONSTRAIN FOCUSES ON THREE CLIMATE SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE GAPS PLUS ONE POLICY-FACING KNOWLEDGE GAP:
CONSTRAIN is structured around three science knowledge gaps particularly relevant for climate projections on the 20-50 year timeframe and a fourth knowledge gap on the translation of new science in societal decisions
Knowledge Gap A: The magnitude and pattern of effective radiative forcing
Objectives under this Knowledge Gap are to reduce uncertainty in key components of Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF), especially from CO2 and aerosol-cloud interactions, and the ERF time history; and to constrain the representation of rapid adjustment processes in climate models by a detailed examination of adjustment mechanisms, their uncertainties, and their role in driving atmospheric circulation changes.
For the first time, we have quantified and broken down ERF uncertainty within CMIP6 models. We have also set out state-of-the-art understanding of rapid adjustments.
Key publications include:
- Efficacy of climate forcings in PDRMIP models
- Effective radiative forcing and adjustments in CMIP6 models
- Effective radiative forcing in a GCM with fixed surface temperatures
- Effective radiative forcing from emissions of reactive gases and aerosols – a multimodel comparison
- The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018
- Energy budget constraints on the time history of aerosol forcing and climate sensitivity
- Observational evidence of increasing global radiative forcing
- Climate impact of aircraft-induced cirrus assessed from satellite observations before and during COVID-19
Knowledge Gap B: The magnitude of cloud feedbacks and the role of cloud-circulation coupling in determining the pattern of climate change and climate sensitivity
Objectives include improving understanding of cloud feedbacks using a hierarchy of models and numerical experiments focussed on how feedbacks are affected by patterns of surface temperature change and influence climate sensitivity; and reassessing and constraining low-cloud feedbacks using observations from the first field study specifically designed for this purpose and associated modelling activities.
Work to date has produced a report on climate sensitivity and feedbacks in CMIP models as well as a report on mesoscale organisation of shallow convection.
Further objectives are to improve understanding of circulation responses to warming, and to test hypotheses for factors influencing the response of circulation systems, especially in the tropical and North Atlantic and neighbouring land areas e.g. the Caribbean and in Europe.
Key papers include:
- An assessment of Earth’s climate sensitivity using multiple lines of evidence
- EUREC4A
- An underestimated negative cloud feedback from cloud lifetime changes
- Dependence of climate sensitivity on the given distribution of relative humidity
- Shallow cumulus cloud feedback in large eddy simulations – bridging the gap to storm-resolving models
Knowledge Gap C: The manner in which ocean variability conditions the response of the climate system to effective radiative forcings on different timescales
The first objective is to determine the processes that control patterns of sea surface temperature change on decadal to multidecadal timescales, and assess whether these can be constrained for
understanding future change. This is underway but will require more analysis of CMIP6 models.
Related papers include:
- On the climate sensitivity and historical warming evolution in recent coupled model ensembles
- An assessment of Earth’s climate sensitivity using multiple lines of evidence
- Carbon–concentration and carbon–climate feedbacks in CMIP6 models and their comparison to CMIP5 models
A set of plausible sea surface temperature projections – one dominated by the forced response, and one dominated by internal variability – has also been produced. These have been used as input to developing a climate emulator that will better reflect the effects of climate feedback variations on temperature and rainfall projections.
A further objective is to quantify the impacts of time varying sea-surface temperature patterns on climate feedbacks and atmospheric circulation. This work is underway and we expect useful publications, but the methods are being adjusted to look at the complementary role of ocean heat uptake – preliminary work has shown that this potentially counters some of the effects of surface temperature change.
A final objective to understand the mechanisms that control uptake of heat and carbon by the oceans on decadal to multidecadal timescales is underway and on target.
Knowledge Gap D: Translation of insights and uncertainties in variability and forced response on 20-50 year timescales into improved projections and effective adaptation and mitigation policy decisions
The first objective under this Knowledge Gap is to provide science input to the IPCC AR6 process. This has been achieved: CONSTRAIN produced 64 peer-reviewed publications, with a further 4 accepted, in time for the Working Group I (WGI) report on the physical climate science basis. 80% of these were referenced in the WGI report, and all of these CONSTRAIN papers are summarised in a briefing note on CONSTRAIN journal publications and their relevance to IPCC AR6.
A further objective aims to characterise and constrain estimates of climate sensitivity and better understand the relationship between different lines of evidence and role in climate projections. A report has been completed setting out advances made by CONSTRAIN in understanding climate sensitivity. These include analysis of CMIP6 model results that support the finding that there is a substantial role for cloud feedbacks in some of the high sensitivity models, highlighting the need for more observational constraints of cloud processes.
Key CONSTRAIN publications that have increased understanding of climate sensitivity and the role of clouds in particular include:
- Understanding the extreme spread in climate sensitivity within the Radiative-Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project
- Observational evidence for a stability Iris effect in the Tropics
- An underestimated negative cloud feedback from cloud lifetime changes
- Dependence of climate sensitivity on the given distribution of relative humidity
- The 2000–2012 global warming hiatus more likely with a low climate sensitivity
There is also an objective to provide the science community with robust climate emulator tools to better characterise uncertainty in global and regional climate projections and their variation with emissions pathways. Progress is summarised in a briefing note on the role of climate model emulators in the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.
Key CONSTRAIN publications include:
- Making climate projections conditional on historical observations
- Large-scale emergence of regional changes in year-to-year temperature variability by the end of the 21st century
- Quantifying uncertainty in aggregated climate change risk assessments
Next steps will clarify how temperatures and rainfall will respond, both globally and regionally, to future greenhouse gas emissions within a complex and changing climate system.
Finally, there are objectives to develop knowledge translation tools targeted at exploring informed mitigation pathways and robust adaptation decisions; and to improve the flow of climate science knowledge gains into stakeholder understanding and decision making, including carbon budgets, UNFCCC negotiations and the general public.
The main knowledge translations tools developed to date are the three CONSTRAIN Zero In reports. These summarise the latest understanding on key processes and concepts studied by CONSTRAIN, including the latest climate model results, near-term warming rates, and the remaining global carbon budget. The reports are underpinned by published CONSTRAIN research. The main findings have been accompanied by infographics aimed at promoting wider understanding of complex climate science.
The Silicone pathway tool is also now openly available, providing Integrated Assessment Modellers with a means of establishing relationships between a commonly modelled emission (e.g. CO2) and a rarer emissions (e.g. N2O), and the ability to “infill” emissions pathways. The emulators described above will form the basis of further knowledge translations tools, particularly in terms of providing robust regional projections of temperature, precipitation, and rainfall to support adaptation and impact studies.