Recent assessments have found the last glacial maximum implies a climate sensitivity of 2.4C (1.4C to 5.0C): www.science.org/doi/...
And the Pliocene implies a sensitivity of 3.1C (2.3C to 4.7C): www.pnas.org/doi/10....
Paleoclimate evidence generally provides the strongest constraint on high ECS.
Check out the @pnas.org highlight for our new paper on how Paleoclimate Pattern Effects in the Pliocene lead to tighter constraints on the modern response to CO2 (a.k.a. climate sensitivity)
How to destroy “forever chemicals” for good | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
How to destroy “forever chemicals” for good
Really excited to see this paper out!! Led by @vtcoop.bsky.social we show that if you use cold and warm paleoclimates together, you can reduce uncertainty in Earth's climate sensitivity by quantifying the pattern effect and more precisely constrain future climate change www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
My first sole-author paper is now published! 🎉🎉🎉
It's the culmination of a lot of thinking, so I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks to the friends, colleagues, and reviewers who helped make this happen 😊
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
📣 Register & join CESM Paleoclimate Working Group Meeting on Feb 12
Hybrid community meeting on paleo modeling, proxy data, & model–data integration. Talks cover deep-time, isotopes, community efforts & coordination
Register for virtual link www.cesm.ucar.edu/events/worki...
@ncar-cgd.bsky.social
Paleoclimates provide examples of past climate change that inform estimates of modern
warming from greenhouse-gas emissions, known as Earth’s clima...
www.pnas.org
Vince Cooper
Vince Cooper
Jessica Tierney
As the authors note, it is critical to account for the pattern effects during paleo periods to turn their ECS estimates into modern analogues: eartharxiv.org/repos...
Jiang Zhu
Zeke Hausfather
Andrew Williams
📢📢 New preprint alert! 📢📢
Radiation is a key piece of climate models, but comes with a trade-off: use an accurate scheme (which is difficult to understand), or a simple scheme (which is not very accurate)...
Here I introduce a scheme which bridges this gap!
arxiv.org/abs/2508.09353
Andrew Williams
The Pliocene climate was more sensitive than the current climate, suggesting that the upper bound of potential 21st-century warming—an estimate informed by Pliocene warming—should be revised down from 5 °C to 4 °C, according to the authors. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/U5H750Y5yUo
