Sea-surface temperature pattern effects have slowed global warming and biased warming-based constraints on climate sensitivity

The observed rate of global warming since the 1970s has been proposed as a strong constraint on equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response (TCR) – key metrics of the global climate response to greenhouse-gas forcing. Using CMIP5/6 models, we show that the inter-model relationship between warming and these climate sensitivity metrics (the basis for the constraint) arises from a similarity in transient and equilibrium warming patterns within the models, producing an effective climate sensitivity (EffCS) governing recent warming that is comparable to the value of ECS governing long-term warming under CO2 forcing. However, CMIP5/6 historical simulations do not reproduce observed warming patterns. When driven by observed patterns, even high ECS models produce low EffCS values consistent with the observed global warming rate. The inability of CMIP5/6 models to reproduce observed warming patterns thus results in a bias in the modeled relationship between recent global..., , , # Data to accompany \"Sea-surface temperature pattern effects have slowed global warming and biased warming-based constraints on climate sensitivity\"

Data for \"Sea-surface temperature pattern effects have slowed global warming and biased warming-based constraints on climate sensitivity\", PNAS ()

## Description of the data and file structure

Included are a netcdf data file needed to make the figures. This includes the following variables (with descriptions).

CMIP56_ECS: CMIP5/6 ECS values; units K

CMIP56_subset_ECS: CMIP5/6 8 model subset ECS values (CanESM5, CNRM CM6, GISS E2, HadGEM3, IPSL CM6A, MIROC6, NorESM2, CESM1); units K

CMIP56_subset_EffCS_amip: CMIP5/6 8-model subset EffCS values for AMIP models over 1981-2014 (CanESM5, CNRM CM6, GISS E2, HadGEM3, IPSL CM6A, MIROC6, NorESM2, CESM1); units K

CMIP56_subset_tas_trend_amip_method1: CMIP5/6 8 model subset global near-surface air temperature trend over 1981-2014 estimated from EffCS in AMIP models and regression (CanESM5, CN...