Low-Frequency Climate Response and Fluctuation–Dissipation Theorems: Theory and Practice

Abstract The low-frequency response to changes in external forcing or other parameters for various components of the climate system is a central problem of contemporary climate change science. The fluctuation–dissipation theorem (FDT) is an attractive way to assess climate change by utilizing statistics of the present climate; with systematic approximations, it has been shown recently to have high skill for suitable regimes of an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM). Further applications of FDT to low-frequency climate response require improved approximations for FDT on a reduced subspace of resolved variables. Here, systematic mathematical principles are utilized to develop new FDT approximations on reduced subspaces and to assess the small yet significant departures from Gaussianity in low-frequency variables on the FDT response. Simplified test models mimicking crucial features in GCMs are utilized here to elucidate these issues and various FDT approximations in an unambiguous fashion. Also, the...

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