A longstanding pursuit in climate science is to better understand Earth’s climate sensitivity, which
quantifies how global mean surface temperature responds to changes in radiative forcing. Uncertainty
in climate sensitivity arises primarily due to uncertainty in radiative feedbacks, which can be influenced
by a large range of processes including cloud microphysics, large-scale circulation of the atmosphere and
ocean, or the pattern of surface temperature changes. This session solicits work on theory, modeling,
and observations related to Earth’s climate sensitivity, with a particular focus on recent advances in
understanding the causes and impacts of the surface temperature pattern effect. The pattern effect
describes how surface temperature changes with identical global mean values can have hugely different
effects on the radiation budget depending on their spatial distribution, having significant implications
for interpreting temperature changes from observations, paleo-climate proxies, and climate-change
projections.
We welcome contributions related, but not limited, to:
• Radiative feedbacks and their modulation by surface warming patterns
• Air-sea interactions and ocean dynamics relevant to surface temperature patterns
• Process studies of feedbacks from clouds and moist processes
• Ocean heat uptake and transient climate sensitivity
• Theoretical models of climate sensitivity
• Interbasin interactions and teleconnections spanning scales from sub-basin to global
This session serves as an exchange platform for the often more separated ocean and atmosphere communities, and we especially encourage contributions from the ocean community.