Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Continuously amplified warming in the Alaskan Arctic: Implications for estimating global warming hiatus: SPATIAL COVERAGE AND BIAS IN TREND

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074232· OSTI ID:1396127
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [1];  [3];  [2];  [2]
  1. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  2. Lanzhou Univ. (China)
  3. Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
  4. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); U.S. Geological Survey, Lakewood, CO (United States)
  5. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Historically, in-situ measurements have been notoriously sparse over the Arctic. As a consequence, the existing gridded data of Surface Air Temperature (SAT) may have large biases in estimating the warming trend in this region. Using data from an expanded monitoring network with 31 stations in the Alaskan Arctic, we demonstrate that the SAT has increased by 2.19 °C in this region, or at a rate of 0.23 °C/decade during 1921-2015. Mean- while, we found that the SAT warmed at 0.71 °C/decade over 1998-2015, which is two to three times faster than the rate established from the gridded datasets. Focusing on the "hiatus" period 1998-2012 as identied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the SAT has increased at 0.45 °C/decade, which captures more than 90% of the regional trend for 1951- 2012. We suggest that sparse in-situ measurements are responsible for underestimation of the SAT change in the gridded datasets. It is likely that enhanced climate warming may also have happened in the other regions of the Arctic since the late 1990s but left undetected because of incomplete observational coverage.
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation; USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1396127
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-17-23052
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 17 Vol. 44; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (35)

The recent global warming hiatus: What is the role of Pacific variability?: Pacific role in global-warming hiatus journal February 2015
The atmospheric role in the Arctic water cycle: A review on processes, past and future changes, and their impacts: Atmospheric Role in Arctic Water Cycle journal March 2016
The recent warming trend in North Greenland: RECENT WARMING TREND IN NORTH GREENLAND journal June 2017
Updated high-resolution grids of monthly climatic observations - the CRU TS3.10 Dataset: UPDATED HIGH-RESOLUTION GRIDS OF MONTHLY CLIMATIC OBSERVATIONS journal May 2013
Underestimated warming of northern Canada in the Berkeley Earth temperature product: UNDERESTIMATED WARMING IN BETPELEY EARTH journal June 2016
The influence of station density on climate data homogenization: STATION DENSITY AND HOMOGENIZATION journal June 2017
Coverage bias in the HadCRUT4 temperature series and its impact on recent temperature trends: Coverage Bias in the HadCRUT4 Temperature Series journal February 2014
Spatial variability of daily weather variables in the high plains of the USA journal March 1994
Intensified warming of the Arctic: Causes and impacts on middle latitudes journal June 2014
Observational Evidence of Recent Change in the Northern High-Latitude Environment journal January 2000
Arctic decadal and interdecadal variability journal December 2000
Recent radical shifts of atmospheric circulations and rapid changes in Arctic climate system journal January 2008
A 10 year climatology of Arctic cloud fraction and radiative forcing at Barrow, Alaska journal January 2010
Global Surface Temperature Change journal January 2010
Reconciling controversies about the ‘global warming hiatus’ journal May 2017
Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus journal February 2014
Seasonal aspects of the recent pause in surface warming journal August 2014
Climate model simulations of the observed early-2000s hiatus of global warming journal September 2014
Quantifying the likelihood of a continued hiatus in global warming journal February 2015
Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown journal February 2016
Volcanic contribution to decadal changes in tropospheric temperature journal February 2014
Natural variability, radiative forcing and climate response in the recent hiatus reconciled journal August 2014
Recent Arctic amplification and extreme mid-latitude weather journal August 2014
The circumpolar active layer monitoring (calm) program: Research designs and initial results 1 journal July 2000
Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus journal June 2015
Impact of Clouds on Surface Radiative Fluxes and Snowmelt in the Arctic and Subarctic journal September 1996
Station Density Strategy for Monitoring Long-Term Climatic Change in the Contiguous United States journal January 2004
Climatology and Interannual Variability of Arctic Cyclone Activity: 1948–2002 journal June 2004
Using Climate Divisions to Analyze Variations and Trends in Alaska Temperature and Precipitation journal April 2014
Mesoscale Climatology and Variation of Surface Winds over the Chukchi–Beaufort Coastal Areas journal April 2016
The Significance of the 1976 Pacific Climate Shift in the Climatology of Alaska journal November 2005
Climate Divisions for Alaska Based on Objective Methods journal July 2012
An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network-Daily Database journal July 2012
A New Estimate of the Average Earth Surface Land Temperature Spanning 1753 to 2011 journal January 2013
The emergence of surface-based Arctic amplification journal January 2009

Cited By (7)

Reconstructed global monthly land air temperature dataset (1880–2017) journal October 2019
Modelling high-latitude summer temperature patterns using physiographic variables journal April 2018
Soil freeze depth variability across Eurasia during 1850–2100 journal December 2019
Characteristics of Water‐Heat Exchanges and Inconsistent Surface Temperature Changes at an Elevational Permafrost Site on the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau journal September 2018
A synthesis dataset of permafrost-affected soil thermal conditions for Alaska, USA journal January 2018
CVPM 1.1: a flexible heat-transfer modeling system for permafrost journal January 2018
CVPM 1.1: a flexible heat-transfer modeling system for permafrost posted_content June 2018

Similar Records

China experiencing the recent warming hiatus: China experiences recent warming hiatus
Journal Article · Mon Feb 09 19:00:00 EST 2015 · Geophysical Research Letters · OSTI ID:1565257
The global warming hiatus: Slowdown or redistribution?
Journal Article · Mon Nov 21 19:00:00 EST 2016 · Earth's Future · OSTI ID:1333236

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Earth Sciences