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Distinguishing the Roles of Natural and Anthropogenically Forced Decadal Climate Variability

Authors:

Amy Solomon

Lisa Goddard

Arun Kumar

James Carton

Clara Deser

Ichiro Fukumori

Arthur Greene

Gabriele Hegerl

Ben Kirtman

Yochanan Kushnir

Matthew Newman

Doug Smith

Daniel Vimont

Tom Delworth

Gerald Meehl

Timothy Stockdale

+11 more
Publication Type:
Journal Article
Year of Publication:
2011
Secondary Title:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Pages:
141-156
Volume:
92
Year:
2011
Date:
02/2011

Abstract

Given that over the course of the next 10–30 years the magnitude of natural decadal variations may rival that of anthropogenically forced climate change on regional scales, it is envisioned that initialized decadal predictions will provide important information for climate-related management and adaptation decisions. Such predictions are presently one of the grand challenges for the climate community. This requires identifying those physical phenomena—and their model equivalents—that may provide additional predictability on decadal time scales, including an assessment of the physical processes through which anthropogenic forcing may interact with or project upon natural variability. Such a physical framework is necessary to provide a consistent assessment (and insight into potential improvement) of the decadal prediction experiments planned to be assessed as part of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report.