Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2012/s25/3/4/b/solution

Holding emissions at gives equilibrium concentration
For time since 2000,
It increases monotonically on the same 200-year timescale and reaches about in 2500. The limiting, and hence peak asymptotic, warming is
In 2500 the equilibrium warming is about , still below that asymptote. A stable thermal adjustment much faster than the carbon timescale follows this slow approach with a short lag and has the same limiting warming. These are predictions of the specified linear reservoir model, not a claim that constant real emissions produce a finite universal atmospheric equilibrium.

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