Abstract
The free atmosphere is an essential part of the climate system, and the processes in the free atmosphere are strongly interrelated with the processes in other climate system components. Temperature in the free atmosphere is better studied than other parameters defining the upper-air climate, but nevertheless there exist numerous problems in the upper-air temperature trends. This paper gives the overview of the current status of radiosonde based empirical studies of the upper-air temperature climate changes. Problems such as data availability, data quality and completeness, inhomogeneity detection in the upper-air temperature time series, temperature trend estimates, overall patterns of upper-air trends are discussed in the paper. Special attention is given to the problem of whether the reanalysis outputs can reproduce trends over long periods in the upper-air temperature series.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Basist, A. N. and M. Chelliah, 1997: Comparison of tropospheric temperatures derived from the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis, NCEP operational analysis, and the Microwave Sounding Unit. Bull. Am. Meteorol Soc., 78, 1431–1447.
Christy, J. R., R. W. Spencer, and W. D. Braswell, 2000: MSU tropospheric temperatures: dataset construction and radiosonde comparisons. J. Atmos. Ocean Tech., 17, 1153–1170.
de Forster, P. M. and P. K. Shine, 1999: Stratospheric water vapour changes as a possible contributor to observed stratospheric cooling. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 3309–3312.
Dianski, N. A. and Volodin YeM, 2002: The reproducibilityof modern climate by model of atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (in Russian). Izvestiya RAN, Fizika Atmospheri I Okeana, 38, 824–840.
Durre, I., R. S. Vose, and D. B. Wuertz, 2006: Overview of the integrated global radiosonde archive. J. Climate, 19, 53–68.
Free, M. et al., 2002: Creating climate reference datasets. CARDS workshop on adjusting radiosonde temperature data for climate monitoring. Bull. Am. Meteorol Soc., 83, 891–899.
Free, M. and D. J. Seidel, 2005: Causes of differing temperature trends in radiosonde upper air data sets. J. Geophys. Res., 110, D07101.
Gaffen, D. I., M. A. Sargent, R. E. Habermann, and J. R. Lanzante, 2000: Sensitivity of tropospheric and stratospheric temperature trends to radiosonde data quality. J. Climate, 13, 1776–1796.
Haimberger, L., 2005: Homogenization of radiosonde temperature time series using ERA-40 analysis feedback information. ERA-40 Project Report Series, No. 22, 73 pp.
Haimberger, L., 2007: Homogenization of radiosonde temperature time series using innovation statistics. J. Climate, 20, 1377–1403.
Henderson-Sellers, A. et al., 1998: Tropical cyclones and global climate change: a post-IPCC assessment. Bull. Am. Meteorol Soc., 79, 19–38.
Hoaglin, D., F. Mosteller, and J. Tukey, 1983: Understanding Robust and Exploratory Data Analysis. Wiley, New York, 447 pp.
Huber, P. J., 1981: Robust Statistics, Wiley, New York.
Hurrell, J. W. and K. E. Trenberth, 1998: Difficulties in obtaining reliable temperature trends: reconciling the surface and satellite microwave sounding unit records. J. Climate, 11, 945–967.
IPCC, 1996: Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group I to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, J. T. Houghton, L. G. Meira Filho, B. A. Callander, N. Harris, A. Kattenberg, and K. Maskell, eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK/New York, 572 pp.
IPCC, 2001: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK/New York, 881 pp.
Iskenderian, H. and R. D. Rosen, 2000: Low-frequency signals in midtropospheric submonthly temperature variance. J. Climate, 13, 2323–2333.
Kalnay, E. et al., 1996: The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bull. Am. Meteorol Soc., 77, 437–471.
Kanamitsu, M., W. Ebisuzaki, J. Woolen, J. Potter, and M. Fiorino, 2002: NCEP–DOE AMIP-II reanalysis (R-2). Bull. Am. Meteorol Soc., 83, 1631–1643.
Khan, V. M., A. M. Sterin, and K. G. Rubinshtein, 2003: Estimates of upper-air temperature trends from the reanalysis and radiosonde data (in Russian). Meteorologia and Gidrologia, 12, 5–18.
Lanzante, J. R., 1996: Resistant, robust and non-parametric techniques for the analysis of climatic data. Theory and examples, including the applications to historical radiosonde station data. Int. J. Climateatol, 16, 1197–1226.
Lanzante, J., S. Klein, and D. Seidel, 2003a: Temporal homogenization of monthly radiosonde temperature data. Part I: methodology. J. Climate, 15, 224–240.
Lanzante, J., S. Klein, and D. Seidel, 2003b: Temporal homogenization of monthly radiosonde temperature data. Part II: trends, sensitivities and MSU comparison. J. Climate, 15, 241–262.
Mason, S. J. and N. E. Graham, 2002: Areas beneath the relative operating characteristics (ROC), and levels (ROL) curves: statistical significance and interpretation. Q. J. Roy. Meteorol Soc., 128, 2145–2166.
Mears, C. A., M. C. Schabel, and F. J. Wentz, 2003: A reanalysis of the MSU channel 2 tropospheric temperature record. J. Climate, 16, 3650–3664.
Rousseeuw, P. J., 1984: Least median of squares regression. J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 79, 871–880.
Rousseeuw, P. J. and V. Yohai, 1984: Robust regression by means of S estimators. In: Robust and Nonlinear Time Series Analysis, Lecture Notes in Statistics, 26, J. Franke, W. Härdle, and R. D. Martin, eds., Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, NY, 256–274.
Rubinshtein, K. G. and A. M. Sterin, 2002: Comparison of the reanalysis results with aerological data (in Russian). Izvestiya RAN, Fizika Atmospheri I Okeana, 38, 301–315.
Rubinshtein, K. G. and Egorova Ye. N, 2000: The estimates of annual cycle reproducibility for the land surface and for the atmosphere byGCM (in Russian). Trudy Gidrometcentra Rossii, 333, 41–98.
Santer, B. D. et al., 2004: Identification of anthropogenic climate change using a second-generation reanalysis. J. Geophys. Res., 109, D21104.
Santer, B. D. et al., 2005: Amplification of surface temperature trends and variability in the tropical atmosphere. Science, 309, 1551–1556.
Seidel, D. J. et al., 2004: Uncertainty in signals of large-scale climate variations in radiosonde and satellite upper-air temperature datasets. J. Climate, 17, 2225–2240.
Schubert, S. D., R. B. Rood, and J. Pfaendtner, 1993: An assimilated dataset for Earth science applications. Bull. Am. Meteorol Soc., 74, 2331–2342.
Spencer, R. W. and J. R. Christy, 1990: Precise monitoring of global temperature trends from satellites. Science, 247, 1558–1562.
Sterin, A. M., 2004a: Sensitivity of the estimates of temperature trends in the troposphere and lower stratosphere from radiosonde data: 2. Detection of inhomogeneities in monthly-resolution series (in Russian). Meteorologia and Gidrologia, 6, 5–22.
Sterin, A. M., 2004b: Sensitivity of the estimates of temperature trends in the troposphere and lower stratosphere from radiosonde data: 1. Selection of data set, time series length and analysis method (in Russian). Meteorologia and Gidrologia, 5, 21–36.
Sterin, A. M., 2006: Climatic changes of the upper-air temperature: problems of empirical studies (in Russian). Vichislitelnye Technologii 11, Special issue, part 3, 6–15.
Thorne, P. W., D. Parker, S. F. B. Tett, P. D. Jones, M. McCarthy, H. Coleman, P. Brohan, and J. R. Knight, 2005: Revisiting radiosonde upper-air temperatures from 1958 to 2002. J. Geophys. Res., 110, D18105, doi:10.1029/2004JD005753.
Uppala, S. M. et al., 2005: The ERA-40 re-analysis. Q. J. Roy. Meteor Soc., 131, 2961–3012.
Uppala, S., A. Simmons, D. Dee, P. Kållberg, and J.-N. Thépaut, 2007: Atmospheric reanalyses and climate variations (this volume).
Vinnikov, K. and N. Grody, 2003: Global warming trend of mean tropospheric temperature observed by satellites. Science, 302, 269–272.
Yohai, V. J., 1987: High breakdown point and high efficiency robust estimates for regression. Annals of Statistics, 15, 642–656.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sterin, A., Khan, V., Rubinshtein, K. (2008). Upper-air Temperature Trends: Current Problems and Some Recent Results. In: Brönnimann, S., Luterbacher, J., Ewen, T., Diaz, H., Stolarski, R., Neu, U. (eds) Climate Variability and Extremes during the Past 100 Years. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6766-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6766-2_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-6765-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-6766-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)