Feedbacks, Sensitivity, and Practical application

The global, annual-mean surface temperature is the most widely used measure of climate change. In particular, scientists are very interested in how the globally averaged temperature will respond as a function of changed amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, changed amount of solar intensity, etc. The term “climate sensitivity” refers to how much temperature change the planet experiences from a given “forcing.” A forcing is an imposed change of the planet’s energy balance with space.

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