Polyphony of Short-Term Climatic Variations

Dmitry M Sonechkin,Nadezda V Vakulenko

doi:10.3390/atmos12091145

Abstract

It is widely accepted to believe that humanity is mainly responsible for the worldwide temperature growth during the period of instrumental meteorological observations. This paper aims to demonstrate that it is not so simple. Using a wavelet analysis on the example of the time series of the global mean near-surface air temperature created at the American National Climate Data Center (NCDC), some complex structures of inter-annual to multidecadal global mean temperature variations were discovered. The origin of which seems to be better attributable to the Chandler wobble in the Earth’s Pole motion, the Luni-Solar nutation, and the solar activity cycles. Each of these external forces is individually known to climatologists. However, it is demonstrated for the first time that responses of the climate system to these external forces in their integrity form a kind of polyphony superimposed on a general warming trend. Certainly, the general warming trend as such remains to be unconsidered. However, its role is not very essential in the timescale of a few decades. Therefore, it is this polyphony that will determine climate evolution in the nearest future, i.e., during the time most important for humanity currently.

Highlights

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its reports has repeatedly warned that global warming will become faster and faster in line with more frequent ElNiño, positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), etc., whereas a delay in warming, which was mentioned in the IPCC reports [1], has been observed
It has been confirmed that the Chandler wobble in the Earth’s Pole motion, the LuniSolar nutation, and the solar activity cycles affect the global climate system in the timescales of years and decades
It has been found for the first time that responses of the climate system to these external forces are internally ordered, and so they can be seen in the real meteorological observations as a whole structure such as a musical polyphony

Summary

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its reports has repeatedly warned that global warming will become faster and faster in line with more frequent ElNiño, positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), etc., whereas a delay in warming, which was mentioned in the IPCC reports [1], has been observed. [2] argue: “Global temperature continues to increase in agreement with the best estimations of the IPCC, especially if we account for the effects of short-term variability due to the El Niño/Southern. Many climate scientists have agreed that the recent warming delay was real. It was only stop by a new greatest El Niño event of 2015/16. Any El Niño is a relatively short-lived phenomenon in climate dynamics, and so prospects for the further evolution of the present-day climate is a mystery in the perspective of the nearest decades

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Conclusion