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How would global-mean temperature change in the 21st century?

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  • Special Topic Climate Changes in the Past Century
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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

The time series of HadCRUT3 global-mean surface air temperature (GSAT) anomaly, Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) index, and the equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) were utilized, and their long-term trends and multiple time-scale periodic oscillations were explored in this study. A long-term trend with a warming rate about 0.44°C /century during 1850–2008, two cool floors occurred respectively around 1910 and during 1950–1970, and three warm flats happened in the 1870s, 1940s and since the year 1998 were found in the GSAT. In this duration, the variability of GSAT can be well reconstructed by the quasi-21-year, the quasi-65-year, and century-scale oscillations. The recent decadal warm flat is caused by their positive phase overlapping from these three oscillations. The maximum rising temperature reached 0.26°C was simulated in 2004 by the three oscillations. The quasi-21-year and the quasi-65-year oscillations were possibly caused by solar radiation and internal variability of the ocean-atmosphere system. Therefore, an outlook of GSAT for the 21st century was made based on the long-term trend and these three oscillations. It was expected that a cool floor and a warm flat of the GSAT would appear in the 2030s and 2060s, respectively. However, the highest warming range is predicted about 0.6°C, it is less than the threshold 2°C and IPCC projection.

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Correspondence to WeiHong Qian.

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Qian, W., Lu, B. & Zhu, C. How would global-mean temperature change in the 21st century?. Chin. Sci. Bull. 55, 1963–1967 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-010-3258-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-010-3258-5

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