Stouffer, R. J., S. Manabe, and K. Bryan, 1991: Climatic response
to a gradual increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In Greenhouse-Gas-Induced
Climatic Change: A Critical Appraisal of Simulations and Observations,
The Netherlands: Elsevier Science Publishers, 129-136.
Abstract: The transient response of a coupled ocean-atmosphere model
to an increase of carbon dioxide has been the subject of several studies
(Bryan et al., 1982; Spelman and Manabe, 1984; Bryan and Spelman,
1985; Schlesinger and Jiang, 1988; Schlesinger et al., 1985; Bryan
et al., 1988; Manabe et al., 1990; Washington and Meehl,
1989). The models used in these studies explicitly incorporate the effect
of heat transport by ocean currents and are different from the model used
by Hansen et al. (1988). Here we evaluate the climatic influence
of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide using a coupled model recently
developed at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. The model
response exhibits a marked and unexpected interhemispheric asymmetry. In
the circumpolar ocean of the Southern Hemisphere, a region of deep vertical
mixing, the increase of surface air temperature is very slow. In the Northern
Hemisphere of the model, the rise of surface air temperature is faster
and increases with latitude, with the exception of the northern North Atlantic,
where it is relatively slow because of the weakening of the thermohaline
circulation.