Abstract
Radiative forcing is a useful concept in determining the potential influence of a particular mechanism of climate change. However, due to the increased number of forcing agents identified over the past decade, the total radiative forcing is difficult to assess. By assigning a range of probability distribution functions to the individual radiative forcings and using a Monte-Carlo approach, we estimate the total radiative forcing since pre-industrial times including all quantitative radiative forcing estimates to date. The resulting total radiative forcing has a 75–97% probability of being positive (or similarly a 3–25% probability of being negative), with mean radiative forcing ranging from +0.68 to +1.34 W m−2, and median radiative forcing ranging from +0.94 to +1.39 W m−2.
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Received: 14 March 2001 / Accepted: 1 June 2001
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Boucher, O., Haywood, J. On summing the components of radiative forcing of climate change. Climate Dynamics 18, 297–302 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s003820100185
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s003820100185