Comparison of glacier‐inferred temperatures with observations and climate model simulations

[1] A reconstructed temperature history for different regions of the globe was prepared by Oerlemans (2005) from length changes of 169 glaciers. In this study, we compare the glacier-inferred temperature variations over 1900–1990 with observed and climate model simulated temperatures for the global average and for five regions: Southern Hemisphere, northwest America, Atlantic, Asia, and the Alps. There is reasonable agreement between the glacier-inferred temperature trends and the observed temperature trends for the globe and in four of the five regions (except northwest America, NWAme). The trends for the globe and in these regions are significantly different from zero, cannot be explained by natural variability (again except for NWAme), and are consistent with the model-simulated response to anthropogenic forcing in all regions. Hence, it is likely that the glacier length reductions are outside the range of natural variations and due in part to regional warming associated with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

[1]  M. Noguer,et al.  Climate change 2001: The scientific basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2002 .

[2]  John F. B. Mitchell,et al.  The simulation of SST, sea ice extents and ocean heat transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments , 2000 .

[3]  W. Collins,et al.  The Community Climate System Model Version 3 (CCSM3) , 2006 .

[4]  Michael Botzet,et al.  Ocean Circulation and Tropical Variability in the Coupled Model ECHAM5/MPI-OM , 2006 .

[5]  J. Oerlemans.  Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records , 2005, Science.

[6]  R. Stouffer,et al.  Assessment of Twentieth-Century Regional Surface Temperature Trends using the GFDL CM2 Coupled Models , 2006 .

[7]  Hiroyasu Hasumi,et al.  K-1 Coupled GCM (MIROC) Description , 2004 .

[8]  W. G. Strand,et al.  Parallel climate model (PCM) control and transient simulations , 2000 .

[9]  P. Jones,et al.  Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: A new data set from 1850 , 2006 .

[10]  David J. Karoly,et al.  Detection of Regional Surface Temperature Trends , 2005 .

[11]  Francis W. Zwiers,et al.  Detection of climate change and attribution of causes , 2001 .

[12]  S. Klein,et al.  GFDL's CM2 Global Coupled Climate Models. Part I: Formulation and Simulation Characteristics , 2006 .

[13]  Seong-Joong Kim,et al.  A coupled climate model simulation of the Last Glacial Maximum, Part 1: transient multi-decadal response , 2002 .

[14]  M. Meier,et al.  Twentieth century climate change: evidence from small glaciers. , 2000, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[15]  鬼頭 昭雄,et al.  AMIP Simulations of the MRI GCM. , 1995 .