Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 42, Issue 1, Pages 153-161Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2014GL062803
Keywords
elevation-dependent warming; homogenization; inhomogeneities; SNOTEL; gridded climate data
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation (NSF) under EPSCoR [EPS-1101342]
- U.S. Geological Survey North Central Climate Science Center grant [G-0734-2]
- NSF (DEB) [1145985]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1145985] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Office Of The Director
- Office of Integrative Activities [1443108] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Observations from the main mountain climate station network in the western United States (U.S.) suggest that higher elevations are warming faster than lower elevations. This has led to the assumption that elevation-dependent warming is prevalent throughout the region with impacts to water resources and ecosystem services. Here we critically evaluate this network's temperature observations and show that extreme warming observed at higher elevations is the result of systematic artifacts and not climatic conditions. With artifacts removed, the network's 1991-2012 minimum temperature trend decreases from +1.16 degrees C decade(-1) to +0.106 degrees C decade(-1) and is statistically indistinguishable from lower elevation trends. Moreover, longer-term widely used gridded climate products propagate the spurious temperature trend, thereby amplifying 1981-2012 western U.S. elevation-dependent warming by +217 to +562%. In the context of a warming climate, this artificial amplification of mountain climate trends has likely compromised our ability to accurately attribute climate change impacts across the mountainous western U.S.
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