And at that point, you really aren't
talking about climate sensitivity any more since climate sensitivity would hold the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere constant.
CO2 growth rates (CEI, p. 11): arguments about what growth rates for CO2 emissions that some models use are besides the point of what the science
says about the climate sensitivity of the earth system (emissions growth rates are if anything an economic question).
Using the MARIA model, he analyses optimal strategies to limit the global temperature increase to 2.5 ºC given uncertainty
about climate sensitivity in the range of 1.5 - 4.5 ºC per doubling of CO2 - equivalent.
While we were all
reading about climate sensitivity yesterday, the Renewable Energy Foundation published a devastating report by Gordon Hughes on depreciation of wind turbines.
The vast majority of the public knows a lot
less about climate sensitivity, the link between hurricanes and CO2 or analogues with past climates than either you or I do, but the link between these issues and actual policy is quite convoluted.
According to Lewis, writing yesterday on Curry's blog, the new paper «addresses a range of concerns that have been raised
about climate sensitivity estimates» like those in their 2015 paper.
And this is just the beginning, because there are a few more points worth making about the above figure: First, not only does increasing uncertainty
about climate sensitivity increase the mean expected damage cost (i.e., best mean prediction), but it also increases the uncertainty around that expected damage cost — and that increase in uncertainty is particularly dramatic.
Recognizing that equilibrium climate sensitivity can not be directly observed because Earth's energy balance is a long way from equilibrium, the studies instead focus on what can be inferred
about climate sensitivity from historical trends.