Transition to a Moist Greenhouse with CO$_2$ and solar forcing

TL;DR

This study uses 3D climate models to show that high CO2 levels can destabilize water-rich planets' climates through cloud feedbacks, leading to a moist greenhouse state that threatens habitability.

Contribution

It demonstrates that CO2-induced climate destabilization is comparable to solar forcing effects, revealing potential irreversible transitions to uninhabitable states.

Findings

CO2 forcing can trigger climate instability via cloud feedbacks

Warm steady states have surface temperatures above 330 K

Transition to a moist greenhouse state may be irreversible

Abstract

Water-rich planets such as Earth are expected to become eventually uninhabitable, because liquid water does not remain stable at the surface as surface temperatures increase with the solar luminosity over time. Whether a large increase of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as CO$_2$ could also destroy the habitability of water-rich planets has remained unclear. We show with three-dimensional aqua-planet numerical experiments that CO$_2$-induced forcing as readily destabilizes the climate as does solar forcing. The climate instability is caused by a positive cloud feedback. The climate does not run away, but instead attains a new steady state with global-mean sea-surface temperatures above 330 K. The upper atmosphere is considerably moister in this warm steady state than in the reference climate, implying that the planet would be subject to substantial loss of water to space. For either a certain range of elevated CO$_2$ concentrations or solar irradiation, we find both cold and warm equilibrium states, implying that the transition to the warm state may not simply be reversed by removing the additional forcing.