Probabilistic estimates of recent changes in temperature: a multi-scale attribution analysis

The role of anthropogenic forcings in temperature changes during recent decades is investigated over a range of spatial scales. Changes in the annual mean surface temperature and also in the warmest night of the year, which has implications for human health, are considered. Distributions of regional trends with and without the effect of human activity are produced, using constraints from a global optimal detection analysis. Anthropogenic forcings are estimated to have more than doubled the likelihood of mean warming in all regions considered except central North America, where results are more model dependent. The likelihood of warming of the warmest night has also increased, but the estimated change is more uncertain. Inferences on sub-continental scales are indicative rather than definitive because of the absence of locally important forcings and processes in model simulations, as well as model biases. As model inconsistencies may impact regional analyses, a multi-model approach is essential.

[1]  S. Hales,et al.  Climate change and human health: present and future risks , 2006, The Lancet.

[2]  Taikan Oki,et al.  A 100-year (1901-2000) global retrospective estimation of the terrestrial water cycle , 2005 .

[3]  John F. B. Mitchell,et al.  Transient Climate Change in the Hadley Centre Models: The Role of Physical Processes , 2001 .

[4]  G. Hegerl,et al.  Detection of changes in temperature extremes during the second half of the 20th century , 2005 .

[5]  John F. B. Mitchell,et al.  Causes of twentieth-century temperature change near the Earth's surface , 1999, Nature.

[6]  Peter A. Stott,et al.  Attribution of regional‐scale temperature changes to anthropogenic and natural causes , 2003 .

[7]  Y. Tsushima,et al.  Climate response to volcanic forcing: Validation of climate sensitivity of a coupled atmosphere‐ocean general circulation model , 2005 .

[8]  Prem K. Goel,et al.  Process modeling by Bayesian latent variable regression , 2002 .

[9]  M. R. Allen,et al.  Checking for model consistency in optimal fingerprinting , 1999 .

[10]  Francis W. Zwiers,et al.  Detecting anthropogenic influence with a multi‐model ensemble , 2002 .

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

[12]  G. Meehl,et al.  Detection of a Human Influence on North American Climate , 2003, Science.

[13]  Reto Knutti,et al.  The use of the multi-model ensemble in probabilistic climate projections , 2007, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[14]  John F. B. Mitchell,et al.  Anthropogenic climate change for 1860 to 2100 simulated with the HadCM3 model under updated emissions scenarios , 2003 .

[15]  F. Zwiers,et al.  Toward Regional-Scale Climate Change Detection , 2003 .

[16]  Myles Allen,et al.  Liability for climate change , 2003, Nature.

[17]  Leonard A. Smith,et al.  Monte Carlo SSA: Detecting irregular oscillations in the Presence of Colored Noise , 1996 .

[18]  Klaus Hasselmann,et al.  Multi-pattern fingerprint method for detection and attribution of climate change , 1997 .

[19]  D. Nychka,et al.  Multivariate Bayesian analysis of atmosphere–ocean general circulation models , 2007, Environmental and Ecological Statistics.

[20]  P. Stott,et al.  Human contribution to rapidly increasing frequency of very warm Northern Hemisphere summers , 2008 .

[21]  A. K. Tank,et al.  Trends in Indices of Daily Temperature and Precipitation Extremes in Europe, 1946–99 , 2003 .

[22]  V. Pope,et al.  The impact of new physical parametrizations in the Hadley Centre climate model: HadAM3 , 2000 .

[23]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[24]  Upmanu Lall,et al.  Probabilistic multimodel regional temperature change projections , 2006 .

[25]  Francis W. Zwiers,et al.  Climate Change Detection and Attribution: Beyond Mean Temperature Signals , 2006 .

[26]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Variability and trends of sub-continental scale surface climate in the twentieth century. Part II: AOGCM simulations , 2002 .

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

[28]  P. Stott,et al.  Uncertainty in continental‐scale temperature predictions , 2006 .

[29]  Myles R. Allen,et al.  Observational Constraints on Past Attributable Warming and Predictions of Future Global Warming , 2006 .

[30]  R. Voss,et al.  Multi-fingerprint detection and attribution analysis of greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol and solar forced climate change , 1997 .

[31]  Myles R. Allen,et al.  Incorporating model uncertainty into attribution of observed temperature change , 2006 .

[32]  D. C. Hill,et al.  Estimation of natural and anthropogenic contributions to twentieth century temperature change , 2002 .

[33]  T. Takemura,et al.  Effect of carbonaceous aerosols on surface temperature in the mid twentieth century , 2006 .

[34]  P. Stott,et al.  External control of 20th century temperature by natural and anthropogenic forcings. , 2000, Science.

[35]  Toru Nozawa,et al.  Detecting natural influence on surface air temperature change in the early twentieth century , 2005 .

[36]  P. Stott,et al.  Anthropogenic warming of central England temperature , 2006 .

[37]  T. C. Johns,et al.  A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere , 1995, Nature.

[38]  Francis W. Zwiers,et al.  Detectability of Anthropogenic Changes in Annual Temperature and Precipitation Extremes , 2004 .

[39]  Raquel V. Francisco,et al.  Uncertainties in regional climate change prediction: a regional analysis of ensemble simulations with the HADCM2 coupled AOGCM , 2000 .

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

[41]  J. Houghton,et al.  Climate change 2001 : the scientific basis , 2001 .

[42]  Richard L. Smith,et al.  Quantifying Uncertainty in Projections of Regional Climate Change: A Bayesian Approach to the Analysis of Multimodel Ensembles , 2005 .

[43]  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 .

[44]  D. Lüthi,et al.  The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves , 2004, Nature.

[45]  K. Kunkel,et al.  Can CGCMs Simulate the Twentieth-Century “Warming Hole” in the Central United States? , 2006 .

[46]  Myles R. Allen,et al.  The End-to-End Attribution Problem: From Emissions to Impacts , 2005 .

[47]  P. Stott,et al.  Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003 , 2004, Nature.

[48]  Detection of Greenhouse Gas and Aerosol Influences on Changes in Temperature Extremes , 2006 .

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

[50]  Antonella Zanobetti,et al.  Extreme Temperatures and Mortality: Assessing Effect Modification by Personal Characteristics and Specific Cause of Death in a Multi-City Case-Only Analysis , 2006, Environmental health perspectives.

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

[52]  D. Karoly,et al.  Attribution of Recent Temperature Changes in the Australian Region , 2005 .

[53]  P. Stott,et al.  Estimating signal amplitudes in optimal fingerprinting, part I: theory , 2003 .

[54]  G. Hegerl,et al.  Understanding and Attributing Climate Change , 2007 .

[55]  M. Beniston.  The 2003 heat wave in Europe: A shape of things to come? An analysis based on Swiss climatological data and model simulations , 2004 .

[56]  R. Vose,et al.  Large-scale changes in observed daily maximum and minimum temperatures: Creation and analysis of a new gridded data set , 2006 .