Combined land/sea surface-air-temperature trends, 1949-1972

Technical Report · Thu Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1982

OSTI ID:5303157

Chen, R S

A major deficiency in most previous studies of fluctuations in the earth's climate based on air temperature records has been the dearth of data from oceanic areas and the Southern Hemisphere. This study analyzes a unique collection of ship-based observations of surface air temperature assembled by the UK Meteorological Office in parallel with the station-based dataset developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research from the publications World Weather Records and Monthly Climatic Data for the World. Based on this much more geographically comprehensive database, it is concluded that, during the 24-year period 1949 to 1972, no statistically significant warming or cooling trends were evident in the time series of globally averaged surface air temperature measurements. However, temperature trends did vary latitudinally, with significant cooling in northern extra-tropical latitudes, no trend in equatorial latitudes, and significant but not homogeneous warming in southern extra-tropical latitudes. Time series of air temperatures over land and sea exhibited qualitatively similar behavior over the period 1949 to 1972, indicative of both the comparable quality of the two datasets and the probable lack of significant widespread bias in the land-based measurements due to urban development. The results of this study underscore the need for dense and geographically comprehensive measurements from both land and ocean areas and from both hemispheres in analyzing the global behavior of the earth's climate.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge (USA). Dept. of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76EV12195
• OSTI ID: 5303157
• Report Number(s): DOE/EV/12195-42; COO-2195-42; ON: DE82018595
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

510100 -- Environment
Terrestrial-- Basic Studies-- (-1989)
520100* -- Environment
Aquatic-- Basic Studies-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR
CLIMATES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CORRELATIONS
DATA
DATA ANALYSIS
EARTH PLANET
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLUIDS
GASES
GLOBAL ASPECTS
INFORMATION
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
NUMERICAL DATA
PLANETS
SEAS
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
SURFACE AIR
SURFACE WATERS
TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT
VARIATIONS