IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v399y1999i6735d10.1038_20905.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Simulation of recent northern winter climate trends by greenhouse-gas forcing

Author

Listed:
  • Drew T. Shindell

    (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
    Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University)

  • Ron L. Miller

    (Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
    Columbia University)

  • Gavin A. Schmidt

    (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
    Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University)

  • Lionel Pandolfo

    (University of British Columbia)

Abstract

The temperature of air at the Earth's surface has risen during the past century1, but the fraction of the warming that can be attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gases remains controversial. The strongest warming trends have been over Northern Hemisphere land masses during winter, and are closely related to changes in atmospheric circulation. These circulation changes are manifested by a gradual reduction in high-latitude sea-level pressure, and an increase in mid-latitude sea-level pressure associated with one phase of the Arctic Oscillation (a hemisphere-scale version of the North Atlantic Oscillation)2. Here we use several different climate-model versions to demonstrate that the observed sea-level-pressure trends, including their magnitude, can be simulated by realistic increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations. Thus, although the warming appears through a naturally occurring mode of atmospheric variability, it may be anthropogenically induced and may continue to rise. The Arctic Oscillation trend is captured only in climate models that include a realistic representation of the stratosphere, while changes in ozone concentrations are not necessary to simulate the observed climate trends. The proper representation of stratospheric dynamics appears to be important to the attribution of climate change, at least on a broad regional scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Drew T. Shindell & Ron L. Miller & Gavin A. Schmidt & Lionel Pandolfo, 1999. "Simulation of recent northern winter climate trends by greenhouse-gas forcing," Nature, Nature, vol. 399(6735), pages 452-455, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:399:y:1999:i:6735:d:10.1038_20905
    DOI: 10.1038/20905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/20905
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/20905?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jaume Rosselló Nadal, 2009. "The impact of the NAO index on European Airline Transit," CRE Working Papers (Documents de treball del CRE) 2009/5, Centre de Recerca Econòmica (UIB ·"Sa Nostra").
    2. Calzadilla, Alvaro & Pauli, Francesco & Roson, Roberto, 2006. "Climate Change and Extreme Events: An Assessment of Economic," Climate Change Modelling and Policy Working Papers 12055, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    3. Liu, Xiaohe & Buetre, Benjamin & Jian, Xu & Liu, Ping & Podbury, Troy, 2005. "Developing an input-output table of China for detailed agricultural policy analysis," Conference papers 331390, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Roberto Roson & Calzadilla Alvaro & Pauli Francesco, 2005. "Climate Change and Extreme Events: an Assessment of Economic Implications," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 49, Society for Computational Economics.
    5. Jessie Cherry & Heidi Cullen & Martin Visbeck & Arthur Small & Cintia Uvo, 2005. "Impacts of the North Atlantic Oscillation on Scandinavian Hydropower Production and Energy Markets," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 19(6), pages 673-691, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:399:y:1999:i:6735:d:10.1038_20905. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.