Thorne, Peter and Parker, D.E. and Santer, B.D. and McCarthy, Mark P. and Sexton, D.M. and Webb, M.J. and Murphy, J.M. and Collins, M. and Titchner, H.A. and Jones, G.S. (2007) Tropical vertical temperature trends: A real discrepancy? Geophysical Research Letters, 34 (16). ISSN 0094-8276

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Abstract

We examine the sensitivity of modeled and observed tropical tropospheric temperature trend amplification (the ratio of T2LT “lower troposphere” to surface changes) to several sources of uncertainty. Model behaviour is robust across a large perturbed physics ensemble of HadCM3, yielding a smaller amplification range (1.44 ± 0.06) than a previous multi-model ensemble (1.41 ± 0.24). The uncertainty of inter-satellite calibration implied by available MSU T2 (mid-troposphere) estimates (σ = 0.035K) is much greater than that required to adequately resolve the trend (σ < 0.01K), or the amplification behaviour (implied amplification range ±0.95). Trend amplification uncertainty in both models and observations decreases as the timescale increases. Depending upon choice of dataset and time period, uncertainty in trend amplification estimates over 21 years lies between ±1.5 and ±0.2.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	tropics; temperatures; troposphere;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS
Item ID:	6563
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL029875
Depositing User:	Peter Thorne
Date Deposited:	11 Nov 2015 12:33
Journal or Publication Title:	Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher:	American Geophysical Union
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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