Causes and implications of persistent atmospheric carbon dioxide biases in Earth System Models

We used this relationship to create a contemporary CO₂ tuned model (CCTM) estimate of the atmospheric CO₂ trajectory for the 21st century. The CCTM yielded CO₂ estimates of 600±14 ppm at 2060 and 947±35 ppm at 2100, which were 21 ppm and 32 ppm below the multimodel mean during these two time periods. Using this emergent constraint approach, the likely ranges of future atmospheric CO₂, CO₂-induced radiative forcing, and CO₂-induced temperature increases for the RCP 8.5 scenario were considerably narrowed compared to estimates from the full ESM ensemble.

Our analysis provided evidence that much of the model-to-model variation in projected CO₂ during the 21st century was tied to biases that existed during the observational era and that model differences in the representation of concentration-carbon feedbacks and other slowly changing carbon cycle processes appear to be the primary driver of this variability. By improving models to more closely match the long-term time series of CO₂ from Mauna Loa, our analysis suggests that uncertainties in future climate projections can be reduced.