New perspectives on the polar amplification of global warming

Speaker: Rodrigo Caballero
Institution: Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University (MISU)
Location: MS 7121
Date: February 4, 2025
Time: 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm


Abstract:

Polar amplification—the enhanced warming of polar temperatures in response to global radiative forcing—is a well-known yet incompletely understood behavior of the global climate system. Multiple, mutually-interacting mechanisms contribute to the amplification, and disentangling them has proved challenging. The traditional approach to climate feedback decomposition does not take into account the specific nature of the polar climate—in particular, that the poles are closer to radiative-advective rather than to radiative-convective energy balance—and therefore fails to provide a meaningful physical picture of polar climate change. I will introduce these energy balance concepts, and present an analytical framework built around radiative-advective equilibrium that permits more direct physical insight into the problem of polar amplification.