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A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in observed global-mean surface temperature

Author

Listed:
  • David W. J. Thompson

    (Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA)

  • John J. Kennedy

    (Met Office Hadley Centre)

  • John M. Wallace

    (University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA)

  • Phil D. Jones

    (Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia)

Abstract

Global temperatures: A glitch in the forties The record of global sea-surface temperatures spanning the past century provides key evidence for global warming and is much scrutinized with a view to distinguishing between anthropogenic and natural climate variability. It has been assumed that this record is now largely free of substantial uncorrected instrument biases. Not so, according to a team assembled from four of the world's leading climate research institutes. They have identified a pronounced discontinuity in the record — a sudden drop of about 0.3 °C in global sea-surface temperature in 1945 — that coincides with a significant change in the shipboard instrumentation used to collect the data. This discontinuity is 40% as large as the century-long upward trend in temperatures, so correcting for it is likely to change the overall record and its interpretation substantially.

Suggested Citation

  • David W. J. Thompson & John J. Kennedy & John M. Wallace & Phil D. Jones, 2008. "A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in observed global-mean surface temperature," Nature, Nature, vol. 453(7195), pages 646-649, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:453:y:2008:i:7195:d:10.1038_nature06982
    DOI: 10.1038/nature06982
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    Cited by:

    1. McKitrick, Ross, 2011. "A simple state-contingent pricing rule for complex intertemporal externalities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 111-120, January.
    2. Luis A. Gil-Alana, 2015. "Linear and segmented trends in sea surface temperature data," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 1531-1546, July.
    3. Marina Friedrich & Luca Margaritella & Stephan Smeekes, 2023. "High-Dimensional Granger Causality for Climatic Attribution," Papers 2302.03996, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.

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