Global temperature change and its uncertainties since 1861

Folland, C. K., Rayner, N. A., Brown, S. J., Smith, T. M., Shen, S. S. P., Parker, D. E., Macadam, I., Jones, P. D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5032-5493, Jones, R. N., Nicholls, N. and Sexton, D. M. H. (2001) Global temperature change and its uncertainties since 1861. Geophysical Research Letters, 28 (13). pp. 2621-2624. ISSN 0094-8276

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Abstract

We present the first analysis of global and hemispheric surface warming trends that attempts to quantify the major sources of uncertainty. We calculate global and hemispheric annual temperature anomalies by combining land surface air temperature and sea surface temperature (SST) through an optimal averaging technique. The technique allows estimation of uncertainties in the annual anomalies resulting from data gaps and random errors. We add independent uncertainties due to urbanisation, changing land-based observing practices and SST bias corrections. We test the accuracy of the SST bias corrections, which represent the largest source of uncertainty in the data, through a suite of climate model simulations. These indicate that the corrections are likely to be fairly accurate on an annual average and on large space scales. Allowing for serial correlation and annual uncertainties, the best linear fit to annual global surface temperature gives an increase of 0.61 ± 0.16°C between 1861 and 2000.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climatic Research Unit Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017) Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climate, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017)
Depositing User:	Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited:	21 Jul 2011 14:16
Last Modified:	11 Mar 2024 14:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/34047
DOI:	10.1029/2001GL012877

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