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Evidences for a quasi 60-year North Atlantic Oscillation since 1700 and its meaning for global climate change

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Abstract

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) obtained using instrumental and documentary proxy predictors from Eurasia is found to be characterized by a quasi 60-year dominant oscillation since 1650. This pattern emerges clearly once the NAO record is time integrated to stress its comparison with the temperature record. The integrated NAO (INAO) is found to well correlate with the length of the day (since 1650) and the global surface sea temperature record HadSST2 and HadSST3 (since 1850). These findings suggest that INAO can be used as a good proxy for global climate change, and that a ~60-year cycle exists in the global climate since at least 1700. Finally, the INAO ~60-year oscillation well correlates with the ~60-year oscillations found in the historical European aurora record since 1700, which suggests that this ~60-year dominant climatic cycle has a solar–astronomical origin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Meteorological Observatory, Department of Earth Science, University of Naples Federico II, Largo S. Marcellino, 10 80138, Naples, Italy

    Adriano Mazzarella

  2. Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) Lab, Coronado, CA, 92118, USA

    Nicola Scafetta

  3. Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA

    Nicola Scafetta

Authors
  1. Adriano Mazzarella
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  2. Nicola Scafetta
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Correspondence to Adriano Mazzarella.

Appendix: Repeating the calculations with HadSST3

Appendix: Repeating the calculations with HadSST3

Very recently, after the submission of the present work, the Met Office Hadley Centre has published in its website a major adjustment of its global sea surface temperature dataset, which is called HadSST3 (Kennedy et al. 2011a, 2011b). The current HadSST3 dataset runs from 1850 to 2006 (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/).

The major difference between HadSST2 and HadSST3 is in a major adjustment of the data during the period 1940 to 1970. During this period in HadSST3, it is better observed in a gradual downward trend (see Fig. 8a), which is in an even better agreement with the 60-year cycle cooling phase claimed in this paper to exist in the climate system.

In Figs. 8b–d, we show the standardized 5–11–23-year moving average curves of the HadSST3 against the correspondent LOD and INAO curves as done in Figs. 4b–d and 5b–d, respectively. The figures show that also with this adjusted SST record, the extremely good correlation (b. R = 0.76–0.75; c. R = 0.83–0.84; d. R = 0.89–0.92) of a quasi 60-year modulation between the global sea surface temperature with the LOD and INAO exists. The cross-correlation is even slightly better, because of a better agreement during the period 1940–1970. Thus, the major conclusion of this paper would not be altered, but on the contrary, it would be further confirmed by this new global sea surface temperature record.

Fig. 8
figure 8

Time plot of yearly of HadSST3, LOD and INAO: a raw values of HadSST3, b smoothed according to a 5-year running mean, c smoothed according to an 11-year running mean, d smoothed according to a 23-year running mean

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Mazzarella, A., Scafetta, N. Evidences for a quasi 60-year North Atlantic Oscillation since 1700 and its meaning for global climate change. Theor Appl Climatol 107, 599–609 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-011-0499-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-011-0499-4

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