DataStreme Earth's Climate System

Errata and Updates

This page lists important corrections and significant updates to the
AMS Climate Studies Textbook and Investigations Manual, 2012-2013.

• Discussion about feedback in Earth's climate system: There are several discussions of the concept of climate feedback in the Climate Studies textbook. Long-term feedback in Earth's climate systems is predominately negative (stable), while most climate scientists agree that short-term net feedback is positive (unstable), amplifying the temperature changes associated with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. We strongly encourage you to further explore climate feedback in the Week 2 Weekly Climate News - Concept of the Week (when posted).
  
  
• Discussion about Climate Sensitivity: The Week 3 Weekly Climate News - Concept of the Week (when posted), elaborates on the feedback concept with a discussion of climate sensitivity. The concept of climate sensitivity is essential to understanding current and past climate change, and predicting future conditions. It measures responsiveness of Earth's climate system to a change in radiative forcing caused by increased atmosphere CO₂, combined with feedback in the system.
  
  
• Update to textbook Figures 4.13 and 4.15, and Table 4.4: The March 2009 paper "Earth's Global Energy Budget" by Kevin E. Trenberth, John T. Fasullo, and Jeffrey Kiehl in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society updated energy balance numbers based on new observations and analyses. We will be using these new numbers in the next edition of our course textbook. The following updated figures reflect this new research:
  
  Figure 4.13
  Figure 4.15
  Table 4.4
  
  Please note that these numbers slightly modify the planetary albedo and Bowen ratio.
  
  
• Update to textbook Figures 9.20 and 9.21: These figures were taken from the 1990 IPCC Assessment. In recent years, the proxy climate data used to construct these graphs has been questioned, and the scientific consensus is that they are no longer accurate portrayals. The IPCC Fourth Assessment report (2007) provides figures that will be used in the next textbook edition, substituting for 9.20 and 9.21. We encourage you to examine the following graphs:
  
  Records of NH temperature variation during the last 1300 years
  
  NOTE: a full discussion of Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions is online at http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html

Earth's Climate System (ECS) is supported, in part, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Grant #NNX10AT50A. The program has also received support from the National Science Foundation through Award #1034999.