Contrasting Vertical Structure of Recent Arctic Warming in Different Data Sets

Igor Esau, Vladimir Alexeev, Irina Repina, Svetlana Sorokina

A. M. Obukhov Institute for Atmospheric Physics, Moscow, Russia.
Centre for Climate Dynamics (SKD), Bergen, Norway.
International Arctic Research Centre, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA.
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre, G. C. Rieber Climate Institute, Bergen, Norway.

DOI: 10.4236/acs.2013.31001                

Abstract

Arctic region is experiencing strong warming and related changes in the state of sea ice, permafrost, tundra, marine environment and terrestrial ecosystems. These changes are found in any climatological data set comprising the Arctic region. This study compares the temperature trends in several surface, satellite and reanalysis data sets. We demonstrate large differences in the 1979-2002 temperature trends. Data sets disagree on the magnitude of the trends as well as on their seasonal, zonal and vertical pattern. It was found that the surface temperature trends are stronger than the trends in the tropospheric temperature for each latitude band north of 50?N for each month except for the months during the ice-melting season. These results emphasize that the conclusions of climate studies drawn on the basis of a single data set analysis should be treated with caution as they may be affected by the artificial biases in data.

Keywords

Arctic Warming; Data Set Intercomparison; Atmospheric Vertical Structure

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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