Climate inertia

Climate inertia or climate change inertia is the phenomenon by which a planet's climate system shows a resistance or slowness to deviate away from a given dynamic state. It can accompany stability and other effects of feedback within complex systems,[1] and includes the inertia exhibited by physical movements of matter and exchanges of energy.[2] The term is a colloquialism used to encompass and loosely describe a set of phenomena which contribute to the more well-defined concept of climate sensitivity. Inertia has been associated with the drivers of, and the responses to, climate change.

Increasing fossil-fuel carbon emissions are a primary inertial driver of change to Earth's climate during recent decades, and vary based on the collective socioeconomic inertia of its over 8 billion human inhabitants.[3][4] Many system components have exhibited inertial responses to this driver, also known as a forcing. The rate of rise in global surface temperature (GST) has especially been resisted by 1) the thermal inertia of the planet's surface, primarily its ocean and cryosphere, and 2) inertial behavior within its carbon cycle feedback.[1][5] Energy stored in the ocean following the inertial responses principally determines near-term irreversible change known as climate commitment.[6] These responses influence transient climate response (TCR or TCRE), but have less impact on equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) because the planet's energy balance ultimately dictates the realignment between long-term GST and the atmospheric CO2 concentration; which is itself mainly a function of total fossil carbon emitted.[7]

Earth's inertial responses are important because they provide the planet's diversity of life and its human civilization further time to adapt to an acceptable degree of planetary change. However, unadaptable change like that accompanying some tipping points may only be avoidable with early understanding and mitigation of the risk of such dangerous outcomes.[8][9] An aim of Integrated assessment modelling, summarized for example as Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP), is to explore Earth system risks that accompany large inertia and uncertainty in the trajectory of human drivers of change.[10]

Thermal inertia
See also: Volumetric heat capacity § Thermal inertia

Ocean inertia

The ocean’s thermal inertia delays some global warming for decades or centuries. It is accounted for in global climate models, and has been confirmed via measurements of Earth’s energy balance.[8] The observed transient climate sensitivity is proportional to the thermal inertia time scale.[11]

Ice sheet inertia

Even after CO2 emissions are lowered, the melting of ice sheets would continue, and further increase sea-level rise for centuries. The slow transportation of heat into the oceans and the slow response time of ice sheets will continue until the new system equilibrium has been reached.[12]

Permafrost takes longer to respond to a warming planet because of thermal inertia, due to ice rich materials and permafrost thickness.[13]

Inertia from carbon cycle feedbacks
See also: Climate change feedback § Carbon cycle

Earth's carbon cycle feedback includes a positive feedback (identified as the climate-carbon feedback) which prolongs warming for centuries, and a negative feedback (identified as the concentration-carbon feedback) which limits the ultimate warming response to fossil carbon emissions. The near-term effect following emissions is asymmetric with latter mechanism being about four times larger,[5] and results in a net slowing contribution to the observed inertia of the climate system in the decades following emissions.[14][15]

Ecological inertia
Main articles: Ecological stability and Ecological resilience

Depending on the ecosystem, effects of climate change could show quickly, while others take more time to respond. For instance, coral bleaching can occur in a single warm season, while trees may be able to persist for decades under a changing climate, but be unable to regenerate. Changes in the frequency of extreme weather events could disrupt ecosystems as a consequence, depending on individual response times of species.[12]

Policy implications of inertia

The IPCC concluded that the inertia and uncertainty of the climate system, ecosystems, and socioeconomic systems implies that margins for safety should be considered. Thus, setting strategies, targets, and time tables for avoiding dangerous interference through climate change. Further the IPCC concluded in their 2001 report that the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentration, temperature, or sea level is affected by:[12]

  • The inertia of the climate system, which will cause climate change to continue for a period after mitigation actions are implemented.
  • Uncertainty regarding the location of possible thresholds of irreversible change and the behavior of the system in their vicinity.
  • The time lags between adoption of mitigation goals and their achievement.

References
  1. Isson, T.T.; Planavsky, N.J.; Coogan, L.A.; Stewart, E.M.; Ague, J.J; Bolton, E.W.; Zhang, S.; McKenzie, N.R.; Kump, L.R. (1 February 2020). "Evolution of the Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Regulation on Earth". Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 34 (2): 1–28. Bibcode:2020GBioC..3406061I. doi:10.1029/2018GB006061.
  2. Veto, M.S.; Christensen, P.R. (2015). "Mathematical Theory of Thermal Inertia Revisited" (PDF). 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
  3. "Explainer: How 'Shared Socioeconomic Pathways' explore future climate change". Carbon Brief. 19 April 2018. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  4. Riahi, Keywan; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Kriegler, Elmar; Edmonds, Jae; O’Neill, Brian C.; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Bauer, Nico; Calvin, Katherine; Dellink, Rob; Fricko, Oliver; Lutz, Wolfgang (1 January 2017). "The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview". Global Environmental Change. 42: 153–168. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.009. ISSN 0959-3780.
  5. Gregory, J.M.; Jones, C.D.; Cadule, P.; Friedlingstein, P. (2009). "Quantifying Carbon Cycle Feedbacks". Journal of Climate. 22 (19): 5232–5250. Bibcode:2009JCli...22.5232G. doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2949.1.
  6. Matthews, J.B.R.; Möller, V.; van Diemenn, R.; Fuglesvedt, J.R.; et al. (2021-08-09). "Annex VII: Glossary". In Masson-Delmotte, Valérie; Zhai, Panmao; Pirani, Anna; Connors, Sarah L.; Péan, Clotilde; et al. (eds.). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (PDF). IPCC / Cambridge University Press. pp. 2215–2256. doi:10.1017/9781009157896.022 (inactive 2023-03-02).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of March 2023 (link)
  7. Mathews, H. Damon; Solomon, Susan (26 April 2013). "Irreversible Does Not Mean Unavoidable" (PDF). Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 340 (6131): 438–439. Bibcode:2013Sci...340..438M. doi:10.1126/science.1236372. PMID 23539182. S2CID 44352274.
  8. Hansen, James; Kharecha, Pushker; Sato, Makiko; Masson-Delmotte, Valerie; et al. (3 December 2013). "Assessing "Dangerous Climate Change": Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature". PLOS ONE. 8 (12): e81648. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...881648H. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081648. PMC 3849278. PMID 24312568.
  9. Tebaldi, Claudia; Friedlingstein, Pierre (13 October 2017). "Delayed detection of climate mitigation benefits due to climate inertia and variability". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (43): 17229–17234. doi:10.1073/pnas.1300005110. PMC 3808634. PMID 24101485.
  10. Weyant, John (2017). "Some Contributions of Integrated Assessment Models of Global Climate Change". Review of Environmental Economics and Policy. 11 (1): 115–137. doi:10.1093/reep/rew018. ISSN 1750-6816.
  11. Royce, B. S. H.; Lam, S. H. (25 July 2013). "The Earth's Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity and Thermal Inertia". arXiv:1307.6821 [physics.ao-ph].
  12. "Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report". IPCC. 2001. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
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  15. Joos, F.; Roth, R.; Fuglestvedt, J.D.; et al. (2013). "Carbon dioxide and climate impulse response functions for the computation of greenhouse gas metrics: A multi-model analysis". Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 13 (5): 2793–2825. doi:10.5194/acpd-12-19799-2012.
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