Ubiquity of human-induced changes in climate variability

Thus far Earth system modeling efforts have primarily focused on projected mean state changes and the sensitivity of specific modes of climate variability, such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation.

However, our knowledge of forced changes in the overall spectrum of climate variability and higher-order statistics is relatively limited. Here we present a new 100-member large ensemble of climate change projections conducted with the Community Earth System Model version 2 over 1850-2100 to examine the sensitivity of internal climate fluctuations to greenhouse warming. Our unprecedented simulations reveal that changes in variability, considered broadly in terms of probability distribution, amplitude, frequency, phasing, and patterns, are ubiquitous and span a wide range of physical and ecosystem variables across many spatial and temporal scales.