Committed warming and the pattern effect
Posted on January 19, 2021 by niclewis
By Nic Lewis
A critique of the paper “Greater committed warming after accounting for the pattern effectâ€, by Zhou, Zelinka, Dessler and Wang.
Key points
The pattern effect is the dependence of outgoing radiation to space on the spatial pattern of surface warming.
A pattern effect, relative to that in equilibrium, can be caused both by evolution over time in the climate system’s response to forcing and by its internal variability.
The paper fails to distinguish between a historical period pattern effect that is forced, which will unwind very slowly, and one that is caused by internal variability, which can quickly unwind, causing rapid warming.
The forced pattern effect is very small in CAM5.3
https://judithcurry.com/2021/01/19/committed-warming-and-the-pattern-effect/#more-26899
