Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Of course, so far, we have assumed that the observed temperature change is entirely
due to the combination of greenhouse, aerosol and volcanic forcing. We have ignored
the potential forcing due to solar variability, but perhaps more importantly, we have
ignored what is called natural internal variability. The fact of the matter is that global
mean temperature anomaly would vary even without external forcing. Heat is constantly
redistributed by the oceans on time scales ranging from years to millennia, leaving surface
temperatures out of equilibrium with radiative forcing.
Figure 3: Response of global mean temperature to volcanic forcing for various
choices of climate sensitivity
Source: R. Lindzen
