Sherwood, S. C., Webb, M. J., Annan, J. D., Armour, K. C., Forster, P. M., Hargreaves, J. C., Hegerl, G., Klein, S. A., Marvel, K. D., Rohling, E. J., Watanabe, M., Andrews, T., Braconnot, P., Bretherton, C. S., Foster, G. L., Hausfather, Z., Heydt, A. S., Knutti, R., Mauritsen, T., Norris, J. R., Proistosescu, C., Rugenstein, M., Schmidt, G. A., Tokarska, K. B., and Zelinka, M. D.
We assess evidence relevant to Earth's equilibrium climate sensitivity per doubling of atmospheric CO2, characterized by an effective sensitivity S. This evidence includes feedback process understanding, the historical climate record, and the paleoclimate record. An Svalue lower than 2 K is difficult to reconcile with any of the three lines of evidence. The amount of cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum provides strong evidence against values of Sgreater than 4.5 K. Other lines of evidence in combination also show that this is relatively unlikely. We use a Bayesian approach to produce a probability density function (PDF) for Sgiven all the evidence, including tests of robustness to difficult‐to‐quantify uncertainties and different priors. The 66% range is 2.6–3.9 K for our Baseline calculation and remains within 2.3–4.5 K under the robustness tests; corresponding 5–95% ranges are 2.3–4.7 K, bounded by 2.0–5.7 K (although such high‐confidence ranges should be regarded more cautiously). This indicates a stronger constraint on Sthan reported in past assessments, by lifting the low end of the range. This narrowing occurs because the three lines of evidence agree and are judged to be largely independent and because of greater confidence in understanding feedback processes and in combining evidence. We identify promising avenues for further narrowing the range in S, in particular using comprehensive models and process understanding to address limitations in the traditional forcing‐feedback paradigm for interpreting past changes. Earth's global “climate sensitivity” is a fundamental quantitative measure of the susceptibility of Earth's climate to human influence. A landmark report in 1979 concluded that it probably lies between 1.5°C and 4.5°C per doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, assuming that other influences on climate remain unchanged. In the 40 years since, it has appeared difficult to reduce this uncertainty range. In this report we thoroughly assess all lines of evidence including some new developments. We find that a large volume of consistent evidence now points to a more confident view of a climate sensitivity near the middle or upper part of this range. In particular, it now appears extremely unlikely that the climate sensitivity could be low enough to avoid substantial climate change (well in excess of 2°C warming) under a high‐emission future scenario. We remain unable to rule out that the sensitivity could be above 4.5°C per doubling of carbon dioxide levels, although this is not likely. Continued research is needed to further reduce the uncertainty, and we identify some of the more promising possibilities in this regard. We assess evidence relevant to Earth's climate sensitivity S: feedback process understanding and the historical and paleoclimate recordsAll three lines of evidence are difficult to reconcile with S< 2 K, while paleo evidence provides the strongest case against S> 4.5 KA Bayesian calculation finds a 66% range of 2.6–3.9 K, which remains within the bounds 2.3–4.5 K under plausible robustness tests