Abstract
The reported overall rise in global surface temperatures since the latter 19th Century is viewed largely as an atmospheric phenomena. However, we show that the global ocean is an important component in determining global surface temperatures. Via an empirical, mathematical methodology, we reveal the intrinsic modes of variability of planetary temperatures over the past 160 years, and find periods of cooling and warming, with multiple modes of variability; seasonal, inter-annual, decadal, multi-decadal and an overall warming trend. Our calculated overall rate of warming differs significantly from the estimate of the Intergovernmental Program on Climate Change, as well as the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We also investigate the modes of variability of recognized climate factors, and find a previously unreported 140 year cycle in two climate system data sets. A relatively large amplitude 60 - 70 year cycle mode appears in all of the climate factors, and may be related to the time scale of the oceanic Meridional Overturning Circulation. This and other oceanic features may modulate global surface temperatures. An empirical relationship between fossil fuel burning and the global surface temperature anomaly time series overall trend emerges from our reduction of the non-stationary, non-linear data.
Highlights
The Earth system absorbs incoming short-wave radiation and reradiates, stores or exchanges it at different rates via natural processes described by [1] and carefully proscribed by [2]
Albeit we will address the issues of climate change and variability, both warming and cooling, via the direct results of our investigations of the various time series that we study in Sections 4, 5 and 6 below
There are reported findings of multi-decadal variability in the oceanic Atlantic MOC [17,18,19] that may be related to global sea ice cover and extent [20,21,22] reported that a typical feature of all recent climate numerical model retrospective studies [23], all driven by atmospheric reanalysis fields, reveal a low in the transport in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the MOC) corresponded to a contemporaneous oscillation in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) over the same period [24] showed a strong connection between the MOC and North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs)
Summary
The Earth system absorbs incoming short-wave radiation and reradiates, stores or exchanges it at different rates via natural processes described by [1] and carefully proscribed by [2]. The fact that the outgoing radiation does not equal the incoming means that the planet’s global body temperature is not a constant. The authors point out that over periods of multiple decades the climate appears to be warming given the upward rise in temperatures reflected in the Global Surface Temperature Anomaly (GSTA) curve that has been produced based on the best available global surface temperature data dating back to the middle of the 19th Century Further they conclude that this rise in global surface temperature may likely be attributed to human activity and land use. We dispel the belief that the atmosphere is controlling the climate of Earth and we reveal a relationship between the Earth’s surface temperature and fossil fuel burning
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