Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents
(2016) In Nature 536(7617). p.411-418- Abstract
The evolution of industrial-era warming across the continents and oceans provides a context for future climate change and is important for determining climate sensitivity and the processes that control regional warming. Here we use post-ad 1500 palaeoclimate records to show that sustained industrial-era warming of the tropical oceans first developed during the mid-nineteenth century and was nearly synchronous with Northern Hemisphere continental warming. The early onset of sustained, significant warming in palaeoclimate records and model simulations suggests that greenhouse forcing of industrial-era warming commenced as early as the mid-nineteenth century and included an enhanced equatorial ocean response mechanism. The development of... (More)
The evolution of industrial-era warming across the continents and oceans provides a context for future climate change and is important for determining climate sensitivity and the processes that control regional warming. Here we use post-ad 1500 palaeoclimate records to show that sustained industrial-era warming of the tropical oceans first developed during the mid-nineteenth century and was nearly synchronous with Northern Hemisphere continental warming. The early onset of sustained, significant warming in palaeoclimate records and model simulations suggests that greenhouse forcing of industrial-era warming commenced as early as the mid-nineteenth century and included an enhanced equatorial ocean response mechanism. The development of Southern Hemisphere warming is delayed in reconstructions, but this apparent delay is not reproduced in climate simulations. Our findings imply that instrumental records are too short to comprehensively assess anthropogenic climate change and that, in some regions, about 180 years of industrial-era warming has already caused surface temperatures to emerge above pre-industrial values, even when taking natural variability into account.
(Less)
- author
- Abram, Nerilie J.
; McGregor, Helen V.
; Tierney, Jessica E.
; Evans, Michael N.
; McKay, Nicholas P.
; Kaufman, Darrell S.
; Thirumalai, Kaustubh
; Martrat, Belen
; Goosse, Hugues
; Phipps, Steven J.
; Steig, Eric J.
; Kilbourne, K. Halimeda
; Saenger, Casey P.
; Zinke, Jens
; Leduc, Guillaume
; Addison, Jason A.
; Mortyn, P. Graham
; Seidenkrantz, Marit Solveig
; Sicre, Marie Alexandrine
; Selvaraj, Kandasamy
; Filipsson, Helena L.
LU
; Neukom, Raphael
; Gergis, Joelle
; Curran, Mark A J
and Von Gunten, Lucien
(Less) - organization
- publishing date
- 2016-08-24
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Nature
- volume
- 536
- issue
- 7617
- pages
- 8 pages
- publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:27558063
- wos:000382646600033
- scopus:84984905560
- ISSN
- 0028-0836
- DOI
- 10.1038/nature19082
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 343941d0-35e5-4c07-a67e-d44d35eab811
- date added to LUP
- 2016-10-10 13:34:58
- date last changed
- 2024-04-05 07:29:50
@article{343941d0-35e5-4c07-a67e-d44d35eab811,
abstract = {{<p>The evolution of industrial-era warming across the continents and oceans provides a context for future climate change and is important for determining climate sensitivity and the processes that control regional warming. Here we use post-ad 1500 palaeoclimate records to show that sustained industrial-era warming of the tropical oceans first developed during the mid-nineteenth century and was nearly synchronous with Northern Hemisphere continental warming. The early onset of sustained, significant warming in palaeoclimate records and model simulations suggests that greenhouse forcing of industrial-era warming commenced as early as the mid-nineteenth century and included an enhanced equatorial ocean response mechanism. The development of Southern Hemisphere warming is delayed in reconstructions, but this apparent delay is not reproduced in climate simulations. Our findings imply that instrumental records are too short to comprehensively assess anthropogenic climate change and that, in some regions, about 180 years of industrial-era warming has already caused surface temperatures to emerge above pre-industrial values, even when taking natural variability into account.</p>}},
author = {{Abram, Nerilie J. and McGregor, Helen V. and Tierney, Jessica E. and Evans, Michael N. and McKay, Nicholas P. and Kaufman, Darrell S. and Thirumalai, Kaustubh and Martrat, Belen and Goosse, Hugues and Phipps, Steven J. and Steig, Eric J. and Kilbourne, K. Halimeda and Saenger, Casey P. and Zinke, Jens and Leduc, Guillaume and Addison, Jason A. and Mortyn, P. Graham and Seidenkrantz, Marit Solveig and Sicre, Marie Alexandrine and Selvaraj, Kandasamy and Filipsson, Helena L. and Neukom, Raphael and Gergis, Joelle and Curran, Mark A J and Von Gunten, Lucien}},
issn = {{0028-0836}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{08}},
number = {{7617}},
pages = {{411--418}},
publisher = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
series = {{Nature}},
title = {{Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature19082}},
doi = {{10.1038/nature19082}},
volume = {{536}},
year = {{2016}},
}