Observed and CMIP6 Modeled Internal Variability Feedbacks and Their Relation to Forced Climate Feedbacks

Inter model variations in global temperature response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide stem mostly from uncertainties in modeled climate feedbacks. To study potential reductions in model feedback uncertainties, we estimate observed feedbacks in response to internal variability using changes in Top Of the Atmosphere energy balance with temperature. We compare those observations with internal variability feedbacks from historical simulations of coupled and atmosphere‐only experiments from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to identify that simulated feedbacks exhibit biases in the tropics, subtropics, and the Southern Ocean. Furthermore, we find a relation between simulated longwave and shortwave internal variability feedbacks and those where atmospheric carbon dioxide is abruptly quadrupled. In the model range of internal variability feedbacks, the observations are more consistent with moderately negative longwave feedback, and weak shortwave feedback, but the observations can't be used to rule out any models or their long‐term feedback.