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Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability

Climate variability is critically important for nature and society, especially if it increases in amplitude and/or fluctuations become more persistent. However, the issues of whether climate variability is changing, and if so, whether this is due to anthropogenic forcing, are subjects of ongoing deb...

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Autores principales: Lenton, Timothy M., Dakos, Vasilis, Bathiany, Sebastian, Scheffer, Marten
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5517648/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28725011
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-06382-x
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author Lenton, Timothy M.
Dakos, Vasilis
Bathiany, Sebastian
Scheffer, Marten
author_facet Lenton, Timothy M.
Dakos, Vasilis
Bathiany, Sebastian
Scheffer, Marten
author_sort Lenton, Timothy M.
collection PubMed
description Climate variability is critically important for nature and society, especially if it increases in amplitude and/or fluctuations become more persistent. However, the issues of whether climate variability is changing, and if so, whether this is due to anthropogenic forcing, are subjects of ongoing debate. Increases in the amplitude and persistence of temperature fluctuations have been detected in some regions, e.g. the North Pacific, but there is no agreed global signal. Here we systematically scan monthly surface temperature indices and spatial datasets to look for trends in variance and autocorrelation (persistence). We show that monthly temperature variability and autocorrelation increased over 1957–2002 across large parts of the North Pacific, North Atlantic, North America and the Mediterranean. Furthermore, (multi)decadal internal climate variability appears to influence trends in monthly temperature variability and autocorrelation. Historically-forced climate models do not reproduce the observed trends in temperature variance and autocorrelation, consistent with the models poorly capturing (multi)decadal internal climate variability. Based on a review of established spatial correlations and corresponding mechanistic ‘teleconnections’ we hypothesise that observed slowing down of sea surface temperature variability contributed to observed increases in land temperature variability and autocorrelation, which in turn contributed to persistent droughts in North America and the Mediterranean.
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spelling pubmed-55176482017-07-20 Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability Lenton, Timothy M. Dakos, Vasilis Bathiany, Sebastian Scheffer, Marten Sci Rep Article Climate variability is critically important for nature and society, especially if it increases in amplitude and/or fluctuations become more persistent. However, the issues of whether climate variability is changing, and if so, whether this is due to anthropogenic forcing, are subjects of ongoing debate. Increases in the amplitude and persistence of temperature fluctuations have been detected in some regions, e.g. the North Pacific, but there is no agreed global signal. Here we systematically scan monthly surface temperature indices and spatial datasets to look for trends in variance and autocorrelation (persistence). We show that monthly temperature variability and autocorrelation increased over 1957–2002 across large parts of the North Pacific, North Atlantic, North America and the Mediterranean. Furthermore, (multi)decadal internal climate variability appears to influence trends in monthly temperature variability and autocorrelation. Historically-forced climate models do not reproduce the observed trends in temperature variance and autocorrelation, consistent with the models poorly capturing (multi)decadal internal climate variability. Based on a review of established spatial correlations and corresponding mechanistic ‘teleconnections’ we hypothesise that observed slowing down of sea surface temperature variability contributed to observed increases in land temperature variability and autocorrelation, which in turn contributed to persistent droughts in North America and the Mediterranean. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5517648/ /pubmed/28725011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-06382-x Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Lenton, Timothy M.
Dakos, Vasilis
Bathiany, Sebastian
Scheffer, Marten
Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability
title Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability
title_full Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability
title_fullStr Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability
title_full_unstemmed Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability
title_short Observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability
title_sort observed trends in the magnitude and persistence of monthly temperature variability
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5517648/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28725011
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-06382-x
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