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Watts et al. 1994
Watts, R.G., Morantine, M.C. and Achuta Rao, K. (1994). Timescales in energy balance climate models: 1. The limiting case solutions. Journal of Geophysical Research 99: doi: 10.1029/93JD01867. issn: 0148-0227.

To demonstrate the difference between the transient responses of systems of varying complexity, a hierarchy of energy balance climate models is analyzed for abrupt and linearly increasing radiative forcings. Only the simplest case (a zero-dimensional mixed-layer ocean) exhibits the e-folding behavior that is a property of linear first-order systems. In each case considered, the natural time scales that occur in the systems are illustrated and physically interpreted. For the case of linearly increasing radiative forcing, the asymptotic solutions are derived by employing the Laplace transform approach. The time scales are related to the asymptotic solutions as illustrated in the text. In a companion paper (Morantine and Watts, this issue), analytical solutions for the transient responses valid for all values of time are presented for the models considered in this paper.

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Keywords
Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics, Climatology, Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics, Paleoclimatology, History of Geophysics, Solar-planetary relationships
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
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American Geophysical Union
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