Observed emergence of the climate change signal: from the familiar to the unknown

Hawkins, Ed, Harrington, Luke, Frame, Dave, Joshi, Manoj, King, A., Rojas, M. and Sutton, R. (2020) Observed emergence of the climate change signal: from the familiar to the unknown. Geophysical Research Letters, 47 (6). ISSN 0094-8276

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Abstract

Changes in climate are usually considered in terms of trends or differences over time. However, for many impacts requiring adaptation, it is the amplitude of the change relative to the local amplitude of climate variability which is more relevant. Here, we develop the concept of “signal-to-noise” in observations of local temperature, highlighting that many regions are already experiencing a climate which would be “unknown” by late 19th century standards. The emergence of observed temperature changes over both land and ocean is clearest in tropical regions, in contrast to the regions of largest change which are in the northern extratropics—broadly consistent with climate model simulations. Significant increases and decreases in rainfall have also already emerged in different regions with the United Kingdom experiencing a shift toward more extreme rainfall events, a signal which is emerging more clearly in some places than the changes in mean rainfall.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	emergence,extremes,observations,rainfall,signal-to-noise,temperature,geophysics,earth and planetary sciences(all),sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900/1908
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	27 Feb 2020 08:24
Last Modified:	06 Jul 2025 23:51
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/74323
DOI:	10.1029/2019GL086259

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