Climate Change Commitment

Due to the thermal inertia of the ocean and slow processes in the cryosphere and land surfaces, the climate would continue to change even if the atmospheric composition were held fixed at today’s values. Past change in atmospheric composition leads to a committed climate change, which continues for as long as a radiative imbalance persists and until all components of the climate system have adjusted to a new state. The further change in temperature after the composition of the atmosphere is held constant is referred to as the constant composition temperature commitment or simply committed warming or warming commitment. Climate change commitment includes other future changes, for example, in the hydrological cycle, in extreme weather events, in extreme climate events, and in sea level change. The constant emission commitment is the committed climate change that would result from keeping anthropogenic emissions constant and the zero emission commitment is the climate change commitment when emissions are set to zero. See also Climate change.