Toggle navigation
52.38.26.42

reference : Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale

JSON YAML text HTML Turtle N-Triples JSON Triples RDF+XML RDF+JSON Graphviz SVG
/reference/3ce3977a-7902-4276-9f6c-17dc3f121c17.html
This bibliographic record appears in :
chapter
2
report
nca3

Reference URIs:
Publication/contributor :
article
Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale
Bibliographic fields
reftype Journal Article
Abstract We compare global-scale changes in satellite estimates of the temperature of the lower troposphere (TLT) with model simulations of forced and unforced TLT changes. While previous work has focused on a single period of record, we select analysis timescales ranging from 10 to 32 years, and then compare all possible observed TLT trends on each timescale with corresponding multi-model distributions of forced and unforced trends. We use observed estimates of the signal component of TLT changes and model estimates of climate noise to calculate timescale-dependent signal-to-noise ratios (S/N). These ratios are small (less than 1) on the 10-year timescale, increasing to more than 3.9 for 32-year trends. This large change in S/N is primarily due to a decrease in the amplitude of internally generated variability with increasing trend length. Because of the pronounced effect of interannual noise on decadal trends, a multi-model ensemble of anthropogenically-forced simulations displays many 10-year periods with little warming. A single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.
Author Santer, B.D. Mears, C. Doutriaux, C. Caldwell, P. Gleckler, P.J. Wigley, T.M.L Solomon, S. Gillett, N.P. Ivanova, D. Karl, T.R. J. R. Lanzante G. A. Meehl P. A. Stott K. E. Taylor P. W. Thorne M. F. Wehner F. J. Wentz
DOI 10.1029/2011JD016263
ISSN 0148-0227
Issue D22105
Journal Journal of Geophysical Research
Pages 1-19
Title Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale
URL http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/18383638/1244615018/name/2011JD016263.pdf
Volume 116
Year 2011
Bibliographic identifiers
.reference_type 0
_chapter ["Ch. 2: Our Changing Climate FINAL"]
_record_number 2744
_uuid 3ce3977a-7902-4276-9f6c-17dc3f121c17