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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 3, NUMBER 10, OCTOBER 1990

PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS...
TREND ANALYSIS

Item #d90oct22

"Possible Factors Controlling Global Marine Temperature Variations Over the Past Century," Z. Wu (Dept. Earth, Atmos. Plan. Sci., 54-1824, Mass. Inst. Technol., Cambridge MA 02139), R.E. Newell, J. Hsiung, J. Geophys. Res., 95(D8), 11,799-11,810, July 20, 1990.

Applies statistical techniques to data from the Global Ocean Surface Temperature Atlas (1856-1988) to estimate physical factors which may have produced observed fluctuations in the temperature record. With this approach, the apparent twentieth century temperature increases can be viewed as partly due to a recovery from cooling at the turn of the century, probably associated with volcanic activity.

Item #d90oct23

"The Correlation of Tropospheric and Stratospheric Temperatures and Its Effect on the Detection of Climate Changes," Q. Liu (Inst. Meteorol. Phys. Oceanog., Utrecht Univ., Neth.), C.J.E. Schuurmans, Geophys. Res. Lett., 17(8), 1085-1088, July 1990.

Using 42 years of seasonal mean temperature anomalies in De Bilt, the Netherlands, shows that one way of detecting climate change is to search for the signal of an increase of lower stratospheric cooling with increasing altitude. This method may be able to separate the climatic change due to the external forces from the atmospheric internal fluctuations.

Item #d90oct24

"Variation in Global Tropospheric Temperature After Adjustment for the El Niño Influence, 1958-1989," J.K. Angell (NOAA-ARL, 1325 East West Highway, Silver Spring MD 20910), ibid., 1093-1096.

Data from a 63-station radiosonde network were subjected to regression adjustment to remove the influence of the El Niño Southern Oscillation. The increase in decadal-mean temperature between the 1960s and the 1980s is reduced from 0.33° C to 0.24° C, the annual temperature is a maximum in 1989 rather than in 1988, and there is more evidence that volcanic eruptions in 1963 and 1982 decreased global tropospheric temperatures by about 0.2-0.3° C for about 3 years.

Item #d90oct25

"A Statistical Trend Analysis of Revised Dobson Total Ozone Data Over the Northern Hemisphere," R. Bojkov (World Meteor. Org., C.P. No. 5, CH-1211 Geneva 20, Switz.), L. Bishop et al., J. Geophys. Res., 95(D7), 9785-9807, June 20, 1990.

Reports a detailed analysis focusing on the seasonal, regional and latitudinal patterns of trends using data from 29 Northern Hemisphere stations through 1986. Trend results based on published data are on average less negative than trends from revised Dobson data for European stations, by about 1.0% per decade across all seasons, with only small average differences for stations in North America and Japan.

Item #d90oct26

"Climatology Comparison and Long-Term Variations of Sea Surface Temperature Over the Tropical Atlantic Ocean," J. Servain (Centre ORSTOM, IFREMER, BP 70, 29280 Plouzané, France), M. Séva, P. Rual, ibid., 95(C6), 9421-9431, June 15, 1990.

Compares two sea surface temperature (SST) climatologies produced from merchant ships taken over two periods, 1911 to 1972 and 1964 to 1984. Through a simple technique to eliminate spurious bias, the analysis allows isolation of the long-term trend of SST anomalies. Comments on the global long-term trend of SST in the tropical Atlantic for the past 70 years.

Item #d90oct27

"Confusing Signals in the Climatic Record," R.C. Balling Jr. (Dept. Geog., Arizona State Univ., Tempe AZ 85287), S.B. Idso, Atmos. Environ., 24A(7), 1975-1977, 1990.

Uses five data sets to investigate the linear trend in screen-level air temperature in Arizona for the past 50 years. Disparate results suggest that even assessing recent historic temperature trends can be difficult.