Journal
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY
Volume 147, Issue 735, Pages 764-772Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/qj.3944
Keywords
annual gain; historical temperatures; nonlinear temperature response; phase lag; semiannual gain; solar flux
Categories
Funding
- James Franck Institute summer fellowship
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The Earth's annual temperature cycle closely follows the annual cycle of solar flux. A new analysis of historical weather station records from the United States determined persistent annual and semiannual variation with high precision. The semiannual temperature cycles are much stronger than expected, consistent with multiplicative effects of two annual cycles.
The annual temperature cycle of the Earth closely follows the annual cycle of solar flux. At temperate latitudes, both driving and response cycles are well described by a strong annual sinusoidal component and a nonvanishing semiannual component. A new analysis of historical weather station records from the United States determines persistent annual and semiannual variation with high precision. Historical annual temperature ranges are consistent with prior studies. Semiannual temperature cycles are much stronger than expected based on the semiannual solar driving. Instead, these cycles were consistent with multiplicative effects of two annual cycles. Our methods provide a quantitative window into the climate's nonlinear response to solar driving, which is of potential value in testing climate models.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available