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Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-18, 22:07 authored by Abram, NJ, McGregor, HV, Tierney, JE, Evans, MN, McKay, NP, Kaufman, DS, Thirumalai, K, Martrat, B, Goosse, H, Phipps, SJ, Steig, EJ, Kilbourne, KH, Saenger, CP, Zinke, J, Leduc, G, Addison, JA, Mortyn, PG, Seidenkrantz, M-S, Sicre, M-A, Selvaraj, K, Filipsson, HL, Neukom, R, Gergis, J, Mark Curran, von Gunten, LThe 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.
History
Publication title
NatureVolume
536Issue
7617Pagination
411-418ISSN
0028-0836Department/School
Institute for Marine and Antarctic StudiesPublisher
Nature Publishing GroupPlace of publication
Macmillan Building, 4 Crinan St, London, England, N1 9XwRights statement
Copyright 2016 Macmillan Publishers LimitedRepository Status
- Restricted