Latitudinal distribution of the recent Arctic warming

Conference · Wed Dec 08 04:00:00 EST 2010

OSTI ID:1043463

Chylek, Petr ^[1]; Lesins, Glen K ^[2]; Wang, Muyin ^[3]

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1. Los Alamos National Laboratory
2. DALLHOUSIE UNIV.
3. UNIV OF WASHINGTON

Increasing Arctic temperature, disappearance of Arctic sea ice, melting of the Greenland ice sheet, sea level rise, increasing strength of Atlantic hurricanes are these impending climate catastrophes supported by observations? Are the recent data really unprecedented during the observational records? Our analysis of Arctic temperature records shows that the Arctic and temperatures in the 1930s and 1940s were almost as high as they are today. We argue that the current warming of the Arctic region is affected more by the multi-decadal climate variability than by an increasing concentration of carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, none of the existing coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models used in the IPCC 2007 cIimate change assessment is able to reproduce neither the observed 20th century Arctic cIimate variability nor the latitudinal distribution of the warming.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1043463
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-10-08162; LA-UR-10-8162
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

04 OIL SHALES AND TAR SANDS
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES
ARCTIC REGIONS
CARBON DIOXIDE
CLIMATES
DISTRIBUTION
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
GREENLAND
ICE
MEETINGS
MELTING
RISE
SEA LEVEL
SEAS