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Title: Amplification of surface temperature trends and variability in thetropical atmosphere

Journal Article · · Science
OSTI ID:881407

The month-to-month variability of tropical temperatures is larger in the troposphere than at the Earth's surface. This amplification behavior is similar in a range of observations and climate model simulations, and is consistent with basic theory. On multi-decadal timescales, tropospheric amplification of surface warming is a robust feature of model simulations, but occurs in only one observational dataset. Other observations show weak or even negative amplification. These results suggest that either different physical mechanisms control amplification processes on monthly and decadal timescales, and models fail to capture such behavior, or (more plausibly) that residual errors in several observational datasets used here affect their representation of long-term trends.

Research Organization:
OLLABORATION - LLNL
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Director, Office of Science
DOE Contract Number:
DE-AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
881407
Report Number(s):
LBNL-58623; SCEHDK; R&D Project: K11505; TRN: US200612%%834
Journal Information:
Science, Vol. 309, Issue 5740; Related Information: Journal Publication Date: 09/02/2005; ISSN 0193-4511
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English