The Absolute Regional Temperature Potential (ARTP) is one of the few climatemetrics that provides estimates of impacts at a sub-global scale. The ARTPpresented here gives the time-dependent temperature response in four latitudebands (90–28° S, 28° S–28° N,28–60° N and 60–90° N) as a function of emissions basedon the forcing in those bands caused by the emissions. It is based on a largeset of simulations performed with a single atmosphere-ocean climate model toderive regional forcing/response relationships. Here I evaluate therobustness of those relationships using the forcing/response portion of theARTP to estimate regional temperature responses to the historic aerosolforcing in three independent climate models. These ARTP results are in goodaccord with the actual responses in those models. Nearly all ARTP estimatesfall within ±20% of the actual responses, though there are someexceptions for 90–28° S and the Arctic, and in the latter the ARTPmay vary with forcing agent. However, for the tropics and the NorthernHemisphere mid-latitudes in particular, the ±20% range appears to beroughly consistent with the 95% confidence interval. Land areas withinthese two bands respond 39–45% and 9–39% more than the latitude bandas a whole. The ARTP, presented here in a slightly revised form, thus appearsto provide a relatively robust estimate for the responses of large-scalelatitude bands and land areas within those bands to inhomogeneous radiativeforcing and thus potentially to emissions as well. Hence this metric couldallow rapid evaluation of the effects of emissions policies at a finer scalethan global metrics without requiring use of a full climate model.
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