Global warming not just a blanket -- in the long run, it's more like tanning oil

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-11/uow-gwn110714.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 10-Nov-2014

Contact: Hannah Hickey
University of Washington
Global warming not just a blanket -- in the long run, it's more like tanning oil

While computer models churn out bleak forecasts for the planet's future, we also have a more conceptual understanding of what is happening as humans pump carbon dioxide into the air. But the conceptual understanding of carbon dioxide wrapping the planet in a blanket that traps more heat is not quite right.

A new study from the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hopes to complete the understanding of what happens to the planet under climate change. Instead of carbon dioxide, or CO2, creating a blanket to slowly warm the planet, a paper this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows the story is a little more complicated - though the ending is, unfortunately, the same.

•••••

ost of the study's simulations involved a one-time addition of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One scenario simulated continuously increasing CO2, as is happening now - in that case, the long-wave radiation effect lasted about 20 years before the shortwave effect took over.

"Our results do not change our overall expectation that the planet will continue to warm due to the burning of fossil fuels, but they do change our fundamental understanding of how that warming comes about," said co-author David Battisti, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.

The study supports what scientists are seeing in models and observations, Battisti added.

•••••