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doi: 10.1023/A:1005375116985pmid: N/A
The question as to whether the climatic anomalies associated with the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age can be attributed to natural climatic variability is explored in this paper. The output from a 500-year run with a global climatic model is used for this purpose. The model exhibits multi-decadal variability in its climatic outputs, which appears to have many of the characteristics of observed climatic data over the last millennium. Global distributions of surface temperature associated with peak warming and cooling phases of the model run highlight the spatial variability which occurs, and the lack of synchroneity in the response from region to region. Considerable year-to-year variability occurs in temperature anomaly patterns during the warming and cooling phases, indicating the complexity of the responses. The model results suggest that such climatic phases should not be considered as lengthy periods of universal warming or cooling. Comparison of observed time series of land surface temperature for the northern hemisphere for the last 500 years with model output indicates that most of the observed features in this climatic record can be reproduced by processes associated with internal mechanisms of the climatic system as reproduced in the model. While the model results do not exclude the possible contribution of external forcing agents as a contributing factor to these climatic episodes, the perception is that such agents would enhance existing naturally-induced climatic features rather than initiate them, at least for this time frame. Given the omnipresent nature of natural climatic variability, it is assumed that such variability rather than external forcing agents has primacy in generating and maintaining the underlying observed climatic variability. An understanding of the mechanisms and behaviour of such climatic features is becoming of increasing importance, in view of their possible role in modulating future climatic trends given the expected influence of the greenhouse effect.
Shackley, Simon; Young, Peter; Parkinson, Stuart; Wynne, Brian
doi: 10.1023/A:1005310109968pmid: N/A
In this paper we explore the dominant position of a particular style of scientific modelling in the provision of policy-relevant scientific knowledge on future climate change. We describe how the apical position of General Circulation Models (GCMs) appears to follow ‘logically’ both from conventional understandings of scientific representation and the use of knowledge, so acquired, in decision-making. We argue, however, that both of these particular understandings are contestable. In addition to questioning their current policy-usefulness, we draw upon existing analyses of GCMs which discuss model trade-offs, errors, and the effects of parameterisations, to raise questions about the validity of the conception of complexity in conventional accounts. An alternative approach to modelling, incorporating concepts of uncertainty, is discussed, and an illustrative example given for the case of the global carbon cycle. In then addressing the question of how GCMs have come to occupy their dominant position, we argue that the development of global climate change science and global environmental ‘management’ frameworks occurs concurrently and in a mutually supportive fashion, so uniting GCMs and environmental policy developments in certain industrialised nations and international organisations. The more basic questions about what kinds of commitments to theories of knowledge underpin different models of ‘complexity’ as a normative principle of ‘good science’ are concealed in this mutual reinforcement. Additionally, a rather technocratic policy orientation to climate change may be supported by such science, even though it involves political choices which deserve to be more widely debated.
doi: 10.1023/A:1005358017894pmid: N/A
A model to calculate the water balance of a hummocky sedge fen in the northern Hudson Bay Lowland is presented. The model develops the potential latent heat flux (evaporation) as a function of net radiation and atmospheric temperature. It is about equally sensitive to a 2% change in net radiation and a 1°C change in temperature. The modelled potential evaporation agrees well with the Priestley–Taylor formulation of evaporation under conditions of a non-limiting water supply. The actual evaporative heat flux is modelled by expressing actual/potential evaporation as a function of potential accumulated water deficit. Model evaporation agrees well with energy balance calculations using 7 years of measured data including wet and dry extremes. Water deficit is defined as the depth of water below reservoir capacity. Modelled water table changes concur with measurements taken over a 4 year period. When net radiation, temperature and precipitation measurements are available the water balance can be projected to longer time periods. Over a 30 year interval (1965–1994) the water balance of the sedge fen showed the following. During the growing season, there was an increase in precipitation, no change in temperature and a decrease in net radiation, evapotranspiration and water deficit. There was also a decrease in winter snow depths. The fen was brought back to reservoir capacity during final snowmelt every year but one. Summer rainfall was the most important single factor affecting the water balance and the ratio actual/potential evaporation emerged as a linear function of rainfall amount. A 2 × CO2 climate warming scenario with an annual temperature increase of 4°C and no precipitation change indicates lesser snow amounts and a shorter snow cover period. A greater summer water deficit, triggered mainly by greater evaporation during the month of May, is partially alleviated by lesser evaporation magnitudes in July. The greater water deficit would be counterbalanced by a 23% increase in summer rainfall. On average, the fen's water reservoir would still be recharged after winter snowmelt but the ground would remain at reservoir capacity for a shorter time. The warming scenario with a 10% decline in summer rainfall would create a large increase in the longevity and severity of the water deficit and this would be particularly evident during drier years. The carbon budget and peat accumulation and breakdown rates are strongly affected by changes in the water balance. Some evidence implies that greater water deficits lead to an increase in net carbon emissions. This implies that the sedge peatland could lose biomass under such conditions. An example is given where increased water deficit results in large decreases in local wetland streamflow.
doi: 10.1023/A:1005327613287pmid: N/A
The succession of ice ages and interglacials during the Pleistocene is understood to have been caused primarily by shifts in the earth's orbit. At the same time, there is evidence of high variability in climate at suborbital frequencies. This paper conducts a statistical analysis of Pleistocene climate using the Greenland Ice Core Research Project (GRIP) data. Factoring temperature into the component explained by orbital forcing and a residual demonstrates that variations at suborbital frequencies are nonlinear and aperiodic. There is evidence of a regular cycle at 7.9 kyr, evidently a subharmonic of the orbital frequencies. Apart from this, however, the proximate memory of both the actual data and the residual decays slowly over a period of 15 kyr. Residual variations in temperature show two prominent features, alternating periods of high and low volatility, and states of distance from and proximity to the path implied by orbital forcing. A parametric model incorporating both of these properties is fit to the data, and is found to significantly improve the forecastability of climate. Transitions between states of proximity and distance from the orbital path can be partially predicted using the statistical model.
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