Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America

Abstract

Research shows that incorporating energy consumption in a global climate model can explain past surface temperature changes of as much as 1 K in mid and high latitudes in winter and autumn over most part of North America and Eurasia. This study concludes that energy use should be considered as an additional forcing in simulations to project future climate change. The worldwide energy consumption in 2006 was close to 498 exajoules. This is equivalent to an energy convergence of 15.8 TW into the populated regions, where energy is consumed and dissipated into the atmosphere as heat. Although energy consumption is sparsely distributed over the vast Earth surface and is only about 0.3% of the total energy transport to the extratropics by atmospheric and oceanic circulations, this anthropogenic heating could disrupt the normal atmospheric circulation pattern and produce a far-reaching effect on surface air temperature. We identify the plausible climate impacts of energy consumption using a global climate model. The results show that the inclusion of energy use at 86 model grid points where it exceeds 0.4 W m−2 can lead to remote surface temperature changes by as much as 1 K in mid- and high latitudes in winter and autumn over North America and Eurasia. These regions correspond well to areas with large differences in surface temperature trends between observations and global warming simulations forced by all natural and anthropogenic forcings1. We conclude that energy consumption is probably a missing forcing for the additional winter warming trends in observations.

Cite this article

Zhang, G., Cai, M. & Hu, A. Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America. Nature Clim Change 3, 466–470 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1803

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