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This chapter assesses the observed changes in surface and atmospheric climate, placing new observations and new analyses made during the past six years (since the Third Assessment Report TAR) in the context of the previous instrumental record. In previous IPCC reports, palaeo-observations from proxy data for the pre-instrumental past and observations from the ocean and ice domains were included within the same chapter. This helped the overall assessment of the consistency among the various variables and their synthesis into a coherent picture of change. A short synthesis and scrutiny of the consistency of all the observations is included here (see Section 3.9). In the TAR, surface temperature trends were examined from 1860 to 2000 globally, for 1901 to 2000 as maps and for three sub-periods (1910-1945, 1946-1975 and 1976-2000). The first and third sub-periods had rising temperatures, while the second sub-period had relatively stable global mean temperatures. The 1976 divide is the date of a widely acknowledged 'climate shift' and seems to mark a time when global mean temperatures began a discernible upward trend that has been at least partly attributed to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. The picture prior to 1976 has essentially not changed and is therefore not repeated in detail here. However, it is more convenient to document the sub-period after 1979, rather than 1976, owing to the availability of increased and improved satellite data since then (in particular Television InfraRed Observation Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) data) in association with the Global Weather Experiment (GWE) of 1979. The post-1979 period allows, for the first time, a global perspective on many fields of variables, such as precipitation, that was not previously available. The availability of high-quality data has led to a focus on the post-1978 period, although physically this new regime seems to have begun in 1976/1977. Documentation of the climate has traditionally analysed global and hemispheric means, and land and ocean means, and has presented some maps of trends. However, climate varies over all spatial and temporal scales: from the diurnal cycle to El Nino to multi-decadal and millennial variations. Atmospheric waves naturally create regions of temperature and moisture of opposite-signed departures from the zonal mean, as moist warm conditions are favoured in poleward flow while cool dry conditions occur in equatorward flow. Although there is an infinite variety of weather systems, one area of recent substantial progress is recognition that a few preferred patterns (or modes) of variability determine the main seasonal and longer-term climate anomalies (Section 3.6). These patterns arise from the differential effects on the atmosphere of land and ocean, mountains, and anomalous heating, such as occurs during El Nino events. The response is generally felt in regions far removed from the anomalous forcing through atmospheric teleconnections, associated with large-scale waves in the atmosphere. This chapter therefore documents some aspects of temperature and precipitation anomalies associated with these preferred patterns, as they are vitally important for understanding regional climate anomalies and why they differ from global means. Changes in storm tracks, the jet streams, regions of preferred blocking anticyclones and changes in monsoons all occur in conjunction with these preferred patterns and other climate anomalies. Therefore the chapter not only documents changes in variables, but also changes in phenomena (such as El Nino) or patterns, in order to increase understanding of the character of change. Extremes of climate, such as droughts and wet spells, are very important because of their large impacts on society and the environment, but they are an expression of the variability. Therefore, the nature of variability at different spatial and temporal scales is vital to our understanding of extremes. The global means of temperature and precipitation are most readily linked to global mean radiative forcing and are important because they clearly indicate if unusual change is occurring. However, the local or regional response can be complex and perhaps even counter-intuitive, such as changes in planetary waves in the atmosphere induced by global warming that result in regional cooling. As an indication of the complexity associated with temporal and spatial scales measures of the magnitude of natural variability of surface temperature in which climate signals are embedded are provided. The measures used are indicators of the range: the mean range of the diurnal and annual cycles, and the estimated 5th to 95th percentiles range of anomalies. These are based on the standard deviation and assumed normal distribution, which is a reasonable approximation in many places for temperature, with the exception of continental interiors in the cold season, which have strongly negatively skewed temperature distributions owing to cold extremes. For the global mean, the variance is somewhat affected by the observed trend, which inflates this estimate of the range slightly. The comparison highlights the large diurnal cycle and daily variability. Daily variability is, however, greatly reduced by either spatial or temporal averaging that effectively averages over synoptic weather systems. Nevertheless, even continental-scale averages contain much greater variability than the global mean in association with planetary-scale waves and events such as El Nino.
An analysis has been made of the interseasonal and interannual variability of mean circulation and eddy statistics for both summer and winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Total variance fields of geopotential height, the noith-wuth and east-west wind components and poleward transient eddy momentum fluxes at 500 mb are analyzed along with their contributions from two broad frequency bands covering 2-8 day and 8-64 day period fluctuations. Largest interannual variability occurs between 40-60°S in association with the main jet stream in summer or the polar jet stream in winter and the main belt of eddy activity within each season. The circulation and eddy statistics during the year of the Global Weather Experiment (GWE) are compared with the means and standard deviations over all years from 1972–80, and contrasted with individual years The GWE summer of 1978–79 is contrasted with 1976–77, and the 1979 winter is contrasted with 1980. The year of the GWE was charactrized by an exceptionally deep circumpolar trough, an increase in westerlies between 45–70°S and a decrease to the north, with a southward shift in the main westerly jet during summer 1978–79 and a considerably enhanced and southward shifted polar jet but weaker subtropical jet in winter 1979. Associated with these changes was a southward shift in storm tracks and high frequency eddy activity throughout the year. In both seasons anomalous convergence of momentum by the eddies into the jets was such that it would have helped sustain the abnormal distribution of westerlies against surface friction. Many of the anomalies in the circulation statistics during the GWE are statistically significant. most notably in winter, and their reality is supported by station data and the dynamical consistency of the relationships between the anomalous mean flow and storm tracks. In addition, the deficit of mass over the Southern Hemisphere revealed by sea level pressures in April-July 1979 is compensated by the surfeit that occurred in the North Hemisphere. Although the vastly improved observations during the GWE may have contributed to the size of the anomaly, they cannot account for the systematic change in location of the features of the flow. The circulation during the GWE appears to have been at one extreme of the large natural interannual variability that is so much a feature of the Southern Hemisphere flow. The atypical nature of the circulation should be borne in mind in analyses based solely on the GWE over the Southern Hemisphere.
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No abstract is provided for this article.
The role of the atmospheric circulation in climate change is examined. A review is given of the information available in the past record on the atmosheric
To characterize the nature of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in different regions of the Pacific have been used. An optimal characterization of both the distinct character and the evolution of each El Niño or La Niña event is suggested that requires at least two indices: (i) SST anomalies in the Niño-3.4 region (referred to as N3.4), and (ii) a new index termed here the Trans-Niño Index (TNI), which is given by the difference in normalized anomalies of SST between Niño-1+2 and Niño-4 regions. The first index can be thought of as the mean SST throughout the equatorial Pacific east of the date line and the second index is the gradient in SST across the same region. Consequently, they are approximately orthogonal. TNI leads N3.4 by 3 to 12 months prior to the climate shift in 1976/77 and also follows N3.4 but with opposite sign 3 to 12 months later. However, after 1976/77, the sign of the TNI leads and lags are reversed.
Planned adaptation to climate change requires information about what is happening and why. While a long-term trend is for global warming, short-term periods of cooling can occur and have physical causes associated with natural variability. However, such natural variability means that energy is rearranged or changed within the climate system, and should be traceable. An assessment is given of our ability to track changes in reservoirs and flows of energy within the climate system. Arguments are given that developing the ability to do this is important, as it affects interpretations of global and especially regional climate change, and prospects for the future.
The state of knowledge and outstanding issues with respect to the global mean energy budget of planet Earth are described, along with the ability to track changes over time. Best estimates of the main energy components involved in radiative transfer and energy flows through the climate system do not satisfy physical constraints for conservation of energy without adjustments. The main issues relate to the downwelling longwave (LW) radiation and the hydrological cycle, and thus the surface evaporative cooling. It is argued that the discrepancy is 18% of the surface latent energy flux, but only 4% of the downwelling LW flux and, for various reasons, it is most likely that the latter is astray in some calculations, including many models, although there is also scope for precipitation estimates to be revised. Beginning in 2000, the top-of-atmosphere radiation measurements provide stable estimates of the net global radiative imbalance changes over a decade, but after 2004 there is “missing energy” as the observing system of the changes in ocean heat content, melting of land ice, and so on is unable to account for where it has gone. Based upon a number of climate model experiments for the twenty-first century where there are stases in global surface temperature and upper ocean heat content in spite of an identifiable global energy imbalance, we infer that the main sink of the missing energy is likely the deep ocean below 275 m depth.
No abstract is provided for this article.
There is a tremendous desire to attribute causes to weather and climate events that is often challenging from a physical standpoint. Headlines attributing an event solely to either human-induced climate change or natural variability can be misleading when both are invariably in play. The conventional attribution framework struggles with dynamically driven extremes because of the small signal-to-noise ratios and often uncertain nature of the forced changes. Here, we suggest that a different framing is desirable, which asks why such extremes unfold the way they do. Specifically, we suggest that it is more useful to regard the extreme circulation regime or weather event as being largely unaffected by climate change, and question whether known changes in the climate system's thermodynamic state affected the impact of the particular event. Some examples briefly illustrated include 'snowmaggedon' in February 2010, superstorm Sandy in October 2012 and supertyphoon Haiyan in November 2013, and, in more detail, the Boulder floods of September 2013, all of which were influenced by high sea surface temperatures that had a discernible human component.
During 2009–2011, Colombia experienced extreme hydroclimatic events associated with the extreme phases of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (EN
The primary focus of this review is tropical‐extratropical interactions and especially the issues involved in determining the response of the extratropical atmosphere to tropical forcing associated with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. The review encompasses observations, empirical studies, theory and modeling of the extratropical teleconnections with a focus on developments over the Tropical Oceans‐Global Atmosphere (TOGA) decade and the current state of understanding. In the tropical atmosphere, anomalous SSTs force anomalies in convection and large‐scale overturning with subsidence in the descending branch of the local Hadley circulation. The resulting strong upper tropospheric divergence in the tropics and convergence in the subtropics act as a Rossby wave source. The climatological stationary planetary waves and associated jet streams, especially in the northern hemisphere, can make the total Rossby wave sources somewhat insensitive to the position of the tropical heating that induces them and thus can create preferred teleconnection response patterns, such as the Pacific‐North American (PNA) pattern. However, a number of factors influence the dispersion and propagation of Rossby waves through the atmosphere, including zonal asymmetries in the climatological state, transients, and baroclinic and nonlinear effects. Internal midlatitude sources can amplify perturbations. Observations, modeling, and theory have clearly shown how storm tracks change in response to changes in quasi‐stationary waves and how these changes generally feedback to maintain or strengthen the dominant perturbations through vorticity and momentum transports. The response of the extratropical atmosphere naturally induces changes in the underlying surface, so that there are changes in extratropical SSTs and changes in land surface hydrology and moisture availability that can feedback and influence the total response. Land surface processes are believed to be especially important in spring and summer. Anomalous SSTs and tropical forcing have tended to be strongest in the northern winter, and teleconnections in the southern hemisphere are weaker and more variable and thus more inclined to be masked by natural variability. Occasional strong forcing in seasons other than winter can produce strong and identifiable signals in the northern hemisphere and, because the noise of natural variability is less, the signal‐to‐noise ratio can be large. The relative importance of tropical versus extratropical SST forcings has been established through numerical experiments with atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). Predictability of anomalous circulation and associated surface temperature and precipitation in the extratropics is somewhat limited by the difficulty of finding a modest signal embedded in the high level of noise from natural variability in the extratropics, and the complexity and variety of the possible feedbacks. Accordingly, ensembles of AGCM runs and time averaging are needed to identify signals and make predictions. Strong anomalous tropical forcing provides opportunities for skillful forecasts, and the accuracy and usefulness of forecasts is expected to improve as the ability to forecast the anomalous SSTs improves, as models improve, and as the information available from the mean and the spread of ensemble forecasts is better utilized.
