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Periodic oscillations in millennial global-mean temperature and their causes

  • Article
  • Atmospheric Science
  • Published:
Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Time series of solar radiation and north Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) index were used to analyze their causality relationship with various periodic oscillations in reconstructed millennial global-mean temperature series. The three long-term periods of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), Little Ice Age (LIA) and recent Global Warming Period (GWP) were distinct in the temperature series. 21-year, 65-year, 115-year and 200-year oscillations were derived from the temperature series after removing three long-term climatic temperatures. The phases of temperature oscillations significantly lagged behind oceanic SST and solar radiation variability. The recent decadal warm period was caused by the quasi-21-year temperature oscillation. At this century-cross period, the four oscillations reached their peaks simultaneously, which did not occur during the last millennium. Based on the long-term trend during the GWP and the four periodic oscillations, global-mean temperature is expected to drop to a new cool period in the 2030s and then a rising trend would be towards to a new warm period in the 2060s.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Monsoon and Environment Research Group, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    WeiHong Qian & Bo Lu

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  1. WeiHong Qian
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  2. Bo Lu
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Correspondence to WeiHong Qian.

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Qian, W., Lu, B. Periodic oscillations in millennial global-mean temperature and their causes. Chin. Sci. Bull. 55, 4052–4057 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-010-4204-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-010-4204-2

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