Scientists look at past climate change data for better idea of the future

Scientists are investigating how the climate reacts to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide and methane.

While it is understood that these gases trap heat in the atmosphere, the researchers wanted to discover more about how the system reacts to various levels of these gases.

A team of scientists have been studying the paleoclimatic record in order to measure relationships between past greenhouses gas increases and how temperatures reacted to this.

It was found that the likely range of climate sensitivity has stood at around 2.2 to 4.8 degrees C when carbon dioxide levels double.

This estimation ties in with the estimates of long-term climate projections developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The team of international scientists highlighted how important the relationship between temperature and the Earth's radiation balance is.

They explained that it is a key factor when it comes to understanding why climate change occurred in the past, as well as getting a better grasp as to what we can expect from the climate change of the future.

Eelco Rohling, professor of ocean and climate change at the University of Southampton, commented: “Consistent intercomparison is a top priority, because it is central to using past climate sensitivity estimates in assessing the credibility of future climate projections."

The professor explained that the team developed the framework before applying it to climate reconstruction data from the past 65 million years.

"This caused a much narrower range of estimates, and this range was now defined in such a way that we could directly compare it with estimates in the IPCC assessment for their longer-term (several centuries) outlook," he said.

However, the expert pointed out that the study only covers the climate sensitivity of the past 65 million years, and considers how realistic the forecasts of the IPCC are given this new data.