Geoscience Reference
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respectively. Due to the ocean thermal inertia, a delayed warming should manifest
itself within 0.1
C/10 years (such a delay can take place over several decades).
The following conclusions can be attributed to the category of projections with
the highest reliability (Collins and Senior 2002):
0.2
°
-
(1)
surface air warming should be accompanied by a tropospheric warming and
stratospheric cooling (the latter is due to a decrease of the upward longwave
radiation
flux from the troposphere);
(2) faster warming on land compared to oceanic regions (as a result of the great
thermal inertia of the ocean); a faster warming in the high-mountain regions
(due to albedo feedbacks);
(3) aerosol-induced atmospheric cooling holds a SAT increase (new estimates
suggest the conclusion about a weaker manifestation of the aerosol impact);
(4) presence of the warming minima in the North Atlantic and in the circumpolar
regions of the oceans in the Southern Hemisphere due to mixing in the
oceanic thickness;
(5) decrease of the snow and sea ice cover extent in the Northern Hemisphere;
(6)
fl
increase of the average global content of water vapor in the atmosphere,
enhancement of precipitation and evaporation, as well as intensi
cation of
the global water cycle;
(7)
intensi
cation (on average) of precipitation in the tropical and high latitudes,
but its attenuation in the sub-tropical latitudes;
(8)
increase of precipitation intensity (more substantial than expected as a result
of precipitation enhancement, on average);
(9)
summertime decrease of soil moisture in the middle regions of the continents
due to intensi
ed evaporation;
(10)
intensi
c with a stronger
warming in the eastern regions than in the western ones, which is accom-
panied by an eastward shift of the precipitation zones;
cation of the El Ni
ñ
of regime in the tropical Paci
(11)
cation of the interannual variability of the summer monsoon in the
Northern Hemisphere;
(12) more frequent appearance of high-temperature extremes but infrequent
occurrence of temperature minima (with an increasing amplitude of the
diurnal temperature course in many regions and with a greater enhancement
of nocturnal temperature minima compared to the daytime maxima);
(13) higher reliability of conclusions about temperature changes compared to
those about precipitation;
(14) attenuation of the thermohaline circulation (THC) that causes a decrease of
the warming in the North Atlantic (the effect of the THC dynamics cannot
however compensate for the warming in West Europe due to the growing
concentration of GHGs); and
(15) most intensive penetration of the warming into the ocean depth in high
latitude where the vertical mixing is most intensive.
intensi
As for the estimates characterized by a lower level of reliability, the conclusion
(at level 4) about the lack of an agreed view on the changing frequency of storms in
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