Climatic Change

Kutzbach, John

doi: 10.1007/BF00134653pmid: N/A

doi: 10.1007/BF00134652pmid: N/A

Rasmusson, Eugene

doi: 10.1007/BF00134654pmid: N/A

Major advances in our understanding of intraseasonal-interannual climate variability during the past three decades are reviewed. Prospects for prediction on these time-scales are briefly discussed.

Stockton, Charles

doi: 10.1007/BF00134655pmid: N/A

Climatic variations in the range of 10 to 100 years duration are perhaps of greatest consequence to mankind because; (1) they have a tendency to be regional in nature, (2) they affect third-world countries as well as more developed countries, and (3) they prevail over the planning horizons used in water resources, agriculture and many other disciplines. Documentation of the range of variability experienced regionally for various regions in the western United States as well as North Africa are examined. The recent high water-levels of the Great Salt Lake and other lakes in the Western United States and the prolonged recent drought in North Africa are examples discussed in detail.

Manabe, S.; Delworth, T.

doi: 10.1007/BF00134656pmid: N/A

The temporal variability of soil wetness and its interactions with the atmosphere were studied using a general circulation model of the atmosphere. It was found that time series of soil wetness computed by the model contain substantial amounts of variance at low frequencies. Long time-scale anomalies of soil moisture resemble the red noise response of the soil layer to white noise rainfall forcing. The dependence of the temporal variability of soil moisture on potential evaporation and precipitation is discussed.

Guetter, Peter; Kutzbach, John

doi: 10.1007/BF00134657pmid: N/A

A series of experiments was done using an atmospheric general circulation model to simulate climates from full glacial time at 18 ka (thousands of years before the present) to the present at 3000 year intervals, and at 126 ka, the previous interglacial period. A modified Köppen climate classification was developed to aid in the interpretation of the results of the circulation model experiments. The climate classification scheme permits the characterization of eleven distinct seasonal temperature and precipitation regimes. For the modern climate, the modified classification agrees well with a classification of natural vegetation zones, and provides an easily-assimilated depiction of climate changes resulting from the varying boundary conditions in the past. At 18 ka, the time of glacial maximum, 45% of the land surface had climate classifications different from the present. At 126 ka, a time when northern hemisphere summer radiation was much greater than at present owing to changes in the date of perihelion and tilt of the earth's axis, the corresponding difference was 32%. For all experiments -3 to 18 ka and 126 ka - only 30% of the land surface showed no change in climate classification from the present. Core areas showing no change included the Amazon basin, the northern Sahara and Australia.

Shackleton, N.; Imbrie, J.

doi: 10.1007/BF00134658pmid: N/A

We have examined the climatic variance in a series of deep-water oxygen-isotope records which range in length from 0.3 to 130 million years and have temporal resolutions between one thousand and 10 million years. These variations in δ 18O are interpreted as a generalized index of temperature change in high latitudes. Over five frequency decades the relation between log (variance density) and log (frequency) is approximately linear with a slope between −1 and −1.5. This relationship is interpreted as a background continuum of the sort postulated by Mitchell (1976) in which the spectrum is built up by layers of variance representing contributions from various processes acting within the climate system on different time scales. Our observed continuum slope is much steeper than that visualized by Mitchell. Additional variance is distributed at periods longer than about 3 million years, where it probably originates from forcing by tectonic processes; and at periods between 20,000 and 100,000 years where the Milankovitch forcing operates. Between these two regions there is a clear variance minimum which we predict will appear in the spectrum of other geological variables that are controlled by climate.

Mitchell, J.

doi: 10.1007/BF00134659pmid: N/A

Paleoclimatic studies help us to gain valuable perspectives and insights into the nature and possible origins of present-day climatic variations that are beyond the reach of conventional historical weather data to provide. In this informal paper, the author lends some personal perspectives on the importance of paleoclimatic studies for the purpose of assessing the future of our climate, and illustrates this by focusing in particular on how tree-ring analyses may elucidate the chronology of changing risks of past and future outbreaks of major droughts in the American West.