King et al. (2025) Detectability of Post‐Net Zero Climate Changes and the Effects of Delay in Emissions Cessation

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Earth s Future
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-01
• Authors: Andrew D. King, Eduardo Alastrué de Asenjo, Amanda C. Maycock, Tilo Ziehn, Alexander R Borowiak, Spencer Clark, Nicola Maher
• DOI: 10.1029/2025ef006918

Research Groups

Not specified in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study investigates the detectability of climate changes under net zero carbon dioxide emissions pathways and the impact of delays in achieving emissions cessation. It finds that detectable climate changes persist for centuries after net zero, and even a 5-year delay in emissions cessation leads to significantly different and detectable climate outcomes globally.

Objective

• To examine the detectability of large-scale, regional, and local climate changes as time passes under net zero carbon dioxide emissions.
• To study how detectable delays in achieving emissions cessation are across various climate indices.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global, large-scale, regional, and local (including Southern Hemisphere, Northern Hemisphere, Antarctic, Arctic, and most of the planet).
• Temporal Scale: 1000-year-long simulations, branching from different points in the 21st century, examining changes for centuries after net zero emissions.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Climate models (implied by the use of 1000-year-long net zero carbon dioxide emissions simulations).
• Data sources: Model simulations.

Main Results

• Detectable changes to climate continue for centuries even after net zero carbon dioxide emissions are achieved.
• Local changes and changes in extremes are more challenging to detect than large-scale changes.
• Southern Hemisphere warming and Northern Hemisphere cooling become detectable at many locations within a few centuries under net zero emissions.
• The effects of an additional 5 years of high greenhouse gas emissions are detectable for global mean surface temperature and other large-scale indices, such as Antarctic and Arctic sea ice extent.
• Delays in emissions cessation result in significantly different local temperatures for most of the planet and most of the global population.

Contributions

• Provides insights into the long-term detectability of climate changes under net zero emissions, an area less understood.
• Utilizes exceptionally long (1000-year) simulations to help identify local climate change signals post-net zero.
• Quantifies the detectable impact of delays in achieving emissions cessation on various climate indices and local temperatures.

Funding

Not specified in the abstract.

Citation

@article{King2025Detectability,
  author = {King, Andrew D. and Asenjo, Eduardo Alastrué de and Maycock, Amanda C. and Ziehn, Tilo and Borowiak, Alexander R and Clark, Spencer and Maher, Nicola},
  title = {Detectability of Post‐Net Zero Climate Changes and the Effects of Delay in Emissions Cessation},
  journal = {Earth s Future},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025ef006918},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025ef006918}
}