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Non-uniform interhemispheric temperature trends over the past 550 years

Climate Dynamics volume 35, pages 1429–1438 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

The warming trend over the last century in the northern hemisphere (NH) was interrupted by cooling from ad 1940 to 1975, a period during which the southern hemisphere experienced pronounced warming. The cause of these departures from steady warming at multidecadal timescales are unclear; the prevailing explanation is that they are driven by non-uniformity in external forcings but recent models suggest internal climate drivers may play a key role. Paleoclimate datasets can help provide a long-term perspective. Here we use tree-rings to reconstruct New Zealand mean annual temperature over the last 550 years and demonstrate that this has frequently cycled out-of-phase with NH mean annual temperature at a periodicity of around 30–60 years. Hence, observed multidecadal fluctuations around the recent warming trend have precedents in the past, strongly implicating natural climate variation as their cause. We consider the implications of these changes in understanding and modelling future climate change.

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Acknowledgments

Jim Renwick kindly provided the updated New Zealand temperature data. RPD and MSM were funded by the Foundation for Research, Science & Technology under contract CO9X0502 (Ecosystem Resilience OBI), and CSMT acknowledges the Australian Greenhouse Office and the Australian Research Council (ARC LX0776040) for their support. This work forms a contribution to the PAGES Aus2k working group. We thank two referees for very helpful comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Landcare Research, PO Box 40, Lincoln, 7640, New Zealand

    Richard P. Duncan & Matt S. McGlone

  2. Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University, PO Box 84, Lincoln, 7647, New Zealand

    Richard P. Duncan

  3. Gondwana Tree-ring Laboratory, PO Box 14, Little River, Canterbury, 7546, New Zealand

    Pavla Fenwick & Jonathan G. Palmer

  4. School of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4RJ, UK

    Chris S. M. Turney

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  1. Richard P. Duncan
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  2. Pavla Fenwick
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  3. Jonathan G. Palmer
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  4. Matt S. McGlone
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  5. Chris S. M. Turney
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Correspondence to Richard P. Duncan.

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Duncan, R.P., Fenwick, P., Palmer, J.G. et al. Non-uniform interhemispheric temperature trends over the past 550 years. Clim Dyn 35, 1429–1438 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-010-0794-2

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Keywords

  • New Zealand
  • Dendrochronology
  • Atlantic multidecadal oscillation
  • Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
  • Interhemispheric temperature variability
  • Multi-decadal temperature change