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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 8, NUMBER 9, SEPTEMBER 1995

PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS...
OF GENERAL INTEREST: TREND ANALYSES

Item #d95sep6

"Unusual Twentieth-Century Summer Warmth in a 1,000-Year Temperature Record from Siberia," K.R. Briffa (Sch. Environ. Sci., Univ. E. Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK), P.D. Jones et al., Nature, 376(6536), 156-159, July 13, 1995.

Presents an unusually long, tree-ring-based reconstruction of mean summer temperatures which shows that the mean temperature of the twentieth century is higher than during any similar period since ad 914. There is no evidence for a globally synchronous Medieval Warm Period.

Item #d95sep7

"The Arctic's Shrinking Sea Ice," O.M. Johannessen (Nansen Environ. & Remote Sensing Ctr., Edvard Griegsvei 3a, 5037 Solheimsvik/Bergen, Norway), M. Miles, E. Bjørgo, ibid., 126-127.

Microwave remotely-sensed data, for the period 1987-1994, show that the rate of decrease in the extent of Arctic sea ice has accelerated compared to the decrease determined from similar data for the period 1978-1987. It is too early to say whether this represents a long-term trend.

Item #d95sep8

"Precision Global Temperatures from Satellites and Urban Warming Effects of Non-Satellite Data," J.R. Christy (Atmos. Sci. Prog., Univ. Alabama, Huntsville AL 35899), J.D. Goodridge, Atmos. Environ., 29(16), 1957-1961, Aug. 1995.

Measurements of temperature over deep layers of the atmosphere have been made operationally since 1978 by the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU). Presents methods of verifying these measurements, using comparisons to radiosonde or independent satellite data. MSU data are precise and hence ideal for global studies. Presents examples of how temperatures measured by surface thermometers are unrepresentative of average trends over broad regions. The global temperature trend of the lower troposphere measured by the MSU, from January 1979 to March 1994, is -0.06° C per decade.

Item #d95sep9

"A Spatial Resampling Perspective on the Depiction of Global Air Temperature Anomalies," S.M. Robeson (Dept. Geog., Indiana Univ., Bloomington IN 47405), Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 76(7), 1179-1183, July 1995.

Illustrates the general problem of how spatially variable station networks can influence estimates of climatic change, using the example of the air temperature anomalies experienced in much of the Northern Hemisphere in 1988. Results illustrate the importance of free and open exchange of data worldwide.