An analysis of model tropospheric response to various forcings

Data from the Fourth Assessment Report (FAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) offers one a unique ability to compare both an individual model run for a number of forcing criteria as well as, being able to critique a set of output from models run under the similar conditions. The importance of these data for continued research into the impacts of a changing climate can not be overstated.

We will present results from an analysis of both model and observational-estimates of monthly-averaged mean layer temperature, surface temperature and near surface temperature. Where possible we will compare these results to other comprehensive model studies like the AMIP2 and CMIP outputs. Preliminary results find a spectrum of surface to tropospheric temperature sensitivities, and an average warming of the surface and atmospheric column within most of the IPCC data.

Our observational estimates will come from monthly-mean output from the NCEP/NCAR, NCEP/DOE and ERA40 reanalyses.

This work is supported under the auspices of the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy at the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48