Journal article

Evaluating global climate responses to different forcings using simple indices

F Drost, D Karoly

Geophysical Research Letters | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2012

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that various climate indices based on surface temperature can be used in detection and attribution studies of climate change. Besides global mean surface temperature, these indices are the contrast between surface temperature over land and over oceans, the temperature contrast between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the meridional temperature gradient in the Northern Hemisphere and the magnitude of the annual cycle of temperatures over land. The indices vary independently from the global mean at decadal timescales, yet show common responses to anthropogenic climate change. Collectively they are more useful in detecting and attributing climate change than gl..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Awarded by Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science


Funding Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Table 1 of this paper) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy's Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. This research was supported by funding from an Australian Research Council Federation fellowship (project FF0668679) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (grant CE110001028). It was also supported by the NCI National Facility at the ANU via the provision of computing resources for the Earth System Grid.