Multi-century variability in the Pacific North American circulation pattern reconstructed from tree rings

We here present a reconstruction (1725–1999) of the winter Pacific North American (PNA) pattern based on three winter climate sensitive tree ring records from the western USA. Positive PNA phases in our record are associated with warm phases of ENSO and PDO and the reorganization of the PNA pattern towards a positive mode is strongest when ENSO and PDO are in phase. Regime shifts in our PNA record correspond to climatic shifts in other proxies of Pacific climate variability, including two well-documented shifts in the instrumental period (1976 and 1923). The correspondence breaks down in the early 19th century, when our record shows a prolonged period of positive PNA, with a peak in 1800–1820. This period corresponds to a period of low solar activity (Dalton Minimum), suggesting a ‘positive PNA like’ response to decreased solar irradiance. The distinct 30-year periodicity that dominates the PNA reconstruction in the 18th century and again from 1875 onwards is disrupted during this period.     

Warm-season temperatures since 1600 BC reconstructed from Tasmanian tree rings and their relationship to large-scale sea surface temperature anomalies

We describe an improved tree-ring reconstruction of mean warm-season (November–April) temperatures for Tasmania from Huon pine. This record extends back to 1600 BC and is based on a tree-ring chronology that was processed to retain as much low-frequency variance as possible. The resulting reconstruction explains 46.6% of the variance and verifies significantly when compared to withheld instrumental data. Cross-spectral analysis of actual and estimated temperatures over the 1886–1991 common period indicates that most of the unexplained variance is at periods < 12 years in length. At periods > 12 years, the squared coherency ranges between 0.6–0.8, and the cross-spectral gain indicates that the amplitude of the reconstruction is a nearly unbiased estimate of the true temperature amplitude. Therefore, this reconstruction should be especially useful for studying multi-decadal temperature variability in the Tasmanian sector of the Southern Hemisphere over the past 3592 years. To this end, we examined the time evolution of low-frequency temperature amplitude fluctuations and found evidence for a 35% amplitude reduction after AD 100 that persisted until about AD 1900. Since that time, the low-frequency temperature amplitude has systematically increased. We also show how this reconstruction is related to large-scale sea surface temperatures (SST) in the Indian Ocean and eastward to the dateline. Pointwise correlations between the Tasmanian record and SSTs reveal a relationship that extends across the southern Indian Ocean and towards the Arabian Sea. This pattern is largely determined by inter-decadal temperature variability, with correlations in this > 10-year bandwidth commonly exceeding 0.6 over most of the southern Indian and southwestern Pacific sectors. A rotated empirical orthogonal function analysis reveals that the pattern of pointwise correlations found between the temperature reconstruction and SSTs is largely explained by the linear combination of three orthogonal modes of SST variability. Received: 12 January 1999 / Accepted: 31 July 1999     

Long-term summer temperature variations in the Pyrenees

Two hundred and sixty one newly measured tree-ring width and density series from living and dry-dead conifers from two timberline sites in the Spanish Pyrenees were compiled. Application of the regional curve standardization method for tree-ring detrending allowed the preservation of inter-annual to multi-centennial scale variability. The new density record correlates at 0.53 (0.68 in the higher frequency domain) with May–September maximum temperatures over the 1944–2005 period. Reconstructed warmth in the fourteenth to fifteenth and twentieth century is separated by a prolonged cooling from ∼1450 to 1850. Six of the ten warmest decades fall into the twentieth century, whereas the remaining four are reconstructed for the 1360–1440 interval. Comparison with novel density-based summer temperature reconstructions from the Swiss Alps and northern Sweden indicates decadal to longer-term similarity between the Pyrenees and Alps, but disagreement with northern Sweden. Spatial field correlations with instrumental data support the regional differentiation of the proxy records. While twentieth century warmth is evident in the Alps and Pyrenees, recent temperatures in Scandinavia are relatively cold in comparison to earlier warmth centered around medieval times, ∼1450, and the late eighteenth century. While coldest summers in the Alps and Pyrenees were in-phase with the Maunder and Dalton solar minima, lowest temperatures in Scandinavia occurred later at the onset of the twentieth century. However, fairly cold summers at the end of the fifteenth century, between ∼1600–1700, and ∼1820 were synchronized over Europe, and larger areas of the Northern Hemisphere.     

Climate-induced changes in river water temperature in North Iberian Peninsula

With the surface air temperature (SAT) data at 37 stations on Central Yunnan Plateau (CYP) for 1961–2010 and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime light data, the temporal-spatial patterns of the SAT trends are detected using Sen’s Nonparametric Estimator of Slope approach and MK test, and the impact of urbanization on surface warming is analyzed by comparing the differences between the air temperature change trends of urban stations and their corresponding rural stations. Results indicated that annual mean air temperature showed a significant warming trend, which is equivalent to a rate of 0.17 °C/decade during the past 50 years. Seasonal mean air temperature presents a rising trend, and the trend was more significant in winter (0.31 °C/decade) than in other seasons. Annual/seasonal mean air temperature tends to increase in most areas, and higher warming trend appeared in urban areas, notably in Kunming city. The regional mean air temperature series was significantly impacted by urban warming, and the urbanization-induced warming contributed to approximately 32.3–62.9 % of the total regional warming during the past 50 years. Meantime, the urbanization-induced warming trend in winter and spring was more significant than that in summer and autumn. Since 1985, the urban heat island (UHI) intensity has gradually increased. And the urban temperatures always rise faster than rural temperatures on the CYP.     

Predictability of the spring rainfall in Northwestern Iberian Peninsula from sea surfaces temperature of ENSO areas

The influence of sea surface temperature (SST) of the ocean on seasonal rainfall in Northwestern Iberian Peninsula is studied for the period 1951–2006. Seasonal correlations were calculated for all seasons and different lags applied on SST. A test for field-significance considering the properties of finiteness and interdependence of the spatial grid was applied to avoid correlations by chance. The most significant and repetitive correlation is found between SST over Equatorial Pacific and spring rainfall. The correlation is maintained for different lags, and the common area that satisfies the criteria for statistical field significance is coincident with ENSO area. A forecast scheme is developed to predict spring rainfall anomalies based in SST over ENSO area in precedent seasons. An analysis of principal components was also carried out to obtain the main modes of the Pacific Ocean and their influence on spring rainfall in NWIP. This study concludes that for the period 1951–2006 the negative phase of ENSO, “La Niña”, almost always announces dry springs in NW Iberian Peninsula. However, the positive phase of ENSO, “El Niño”, does not anticipate the appearance of wet springs.     

Winter-to-spring temperature dynamics in Turkey derived from tree rings since AD 1125

In the eastern Mediterranean in general and in Turkey in particular, temperature reconstructions based on tree rings have not been achieved so far. Furthermore, centennial-long chronologies of stable isotopes are generally also missing. Recent studies have identified the tree species Juniperus excelsa as one of the most promising tree species in Turkey for developing long climate sensitive stable carbon isotope chronologies because this species is long-living and thus has the ability to capture low-frequency climate signals. We were able to develop a statistically robust, precisely dated and annually resolved chronology back to AD 1125. We proved that variability of δ¹³C in tree rings of J. excelsa is mainly dependent on winter-to-spring temperatures (January–May). Low-frequency trends, which were associated with the medieval warm period and the little ice age, were identified in the winter-to-spring temperature reconstruction, however, the twentieth century warming trend found elsewhere could not be identified in our proxy record, nor was it found in the corresponding meteorological data used for our study. Comparisons with other northern-hemispherical proxy data showed that similar low-frequency signals are present until the beginning of the twentieth century when the other proxies derived from further north indicate a significant warming while the winter-to-spring temperature proxy from SW-Turkey does not. Correlation analyses including our temperature reconstruction and seven well-known climate indices suggest that various atmospheric oscillation patterns are capable of influencing the temperature variations in SW-Turkey.     

江苏夏季气温异常的时空变化特征

利用中国160气象观测站1951-2005 年和江苏省59气象观测站1961-2004年的月平均气温资料, 在分析江苏气温变化的季节-年际变化特征的基础上, 重点分析了江苏夏季气温的年际、年代际变化的时间和空间特征.发现:江苏夏季气温1970s到1990s前期基本上处在一个偏凉期,1960s及1990s中后期以后基本上处在一个偏热期;江苏夏季气温异常存在显著的准6 a、准9 a的年际周期和以16 a为中心的年代际周期;江苏夏季气温趋势自西北向东南呈现正负正的位相分布特点,即江苏西北部和东南部地区夏季气温呈现升高的趋势,其它地区呈现降低的趋势.     

Five centuries of Southern Moravian drought variations revealed from living and historic tree rings

Past, present, and projected fluctuations of the hydrological cycle, associated to anthropogenic climate change, describe a pending challenge for natural ecosystems and human civilizations. Here, we compile and analyze long meteorological records from Brno, Czech Republic and nearby tree-ring measurements of living and historic firs from Southern Moravia. This unique paleoclimatic compilation together with innovative reconstruction methods and error estimates allows regional-scale May?CJune drought variability to be estimated back to ad 1500. Driest and wettest conditions occurred in 1653 and 1713, respectively. The ten wettest decades are evenly distributed throughout time, whereas the driest episodes occurred in the seventeenth century and from the 1840s onward. Discussion emphasizes agreement between the new reconstruction and documentary evidence, and stresses possible sources of reconstruction uncertainty including station inhomogeneity, limited frequency preservation, reduced climate sensitivity, and large-scale constraints.     

First-order impacts on winter and summer crops assessed with various high-resolution climate models in the Iberian Peninsula

The first-order or initial agricultural impacts of climate change in the Iberian Peninsula were evaluated by linking crop simulation models to several high-resolution climate models (RCMs). The RCMs provided the daily weather data for control, and the A2 and B2 IPCC scenarios. All RCMs used boundary conditions from the atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) HadAM3 while two were also bounded to two other AGCMs. The analyses were standardised to control the sources of variation and uncertainties that were added in the process. Climatic impacts on wheat and maize of climate were derived from the A2 scenario generated by RCMs bounded to HadAM3. Some results derived from B2 scenarios are included for comparisons together with impacts derived from RCMs using different boundary conditions. Crop models were used as impact models and yield was used as an indicator that summarised the effects of climate to quantify initial impacts and differentiate among regions. Comparison among RCMs was made through the choice of different crop management options. All RCM-crop model combinations detected crop failures for winter wheat in the South under control and future scenarios, and projected yield increases for spring wheat in northern and high altitude areas. Although projected impacts differed among RCMs, similar trends emerged for relative yields for some regions. RCM-crop model outputs compared favourably to others using European Re-Analysis data (ERA-15), establishing the feasibility of using direct daily outputs from RCM for impact analysis. Uncertainties were quantified as the standard deviation of the mean obtained for all RCMs in each location and differed greatly between winter (wheat) and summer (maize) seasons, being smaller in the latter.     

Future surface temperature changes for the Iberian Peninsula according to EURO-CORDEX climate projections

Climate Dynamics - Future changes in the mean, maximum and minimum temperature in the Iberian Peninsula were investigated using bias-corrected EURO-CORDEX climate projections. The results show that...     

Impact of climate variability on summer fires in a Mediterranean environment (northeastern Iberian Peninsula)

We analyse the impact of climate interannual variability on summer forest fires in Catalonia (northeastern Iberian Peninsula). The study period covers 25 years, from 1983 to 2007. During this period more than 16000 fire events were recorded and the total burned area was more than 240 kha, i.e. around 7.5% of whole Catalonia. We show that the interannual variability of summer fires is significantly correlated with summer precipitation and summer maximum temperature. In addition, fires are significantly related to antecedent climate conditions, showing positive correlation with lagged precipitation and negative correlation with lagged temperatures, both with a time lag of two years, and negative correlation with the minimum temperature in the spring of the same year. The interaction between antecedent climate conditions and fire variability highlights the importance of climate not only in regulating fuel flammability, but also fuel structure. On the basis of these results, we discuss a simple regression model that explains up to 76% of the variance of the Burned Area and up to 91% of the variance of the number of fires. This simple regression model produces reliable out-of-sample predictions of the impact of climate variability on summer forest fires and it could be used to estimate fire response to different climate change scenarios, assuming that climate-vegetation-humans-fire interactions will not change significantly.     

Self-similarity patterns of precipitation in the Iberian Peninsula

Summary An objective classification of the precipitation field over the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands is obtained. Data are derived from a high-resolution daily precipitation dataset obtained from in-situ measurements. The dataset, Iberian monthly Precipitation Dataset (IPD), consists of monthly precipitation data over a 25 km × 25 km grid from 1^st January 1961 to 31^st December 2003. Therefore, 960 data series over the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands are disposed over the grid for 43-year period. Multi-resolution wavelet analysis is used to extract similar information in the precipitation field at different timescales. An objective classification of the obtained wavelet coefficient series is carried out by means of the Kohonen’s neural network, also named Self-Organizing Map (SOM). SOM is formed by an unsupervised learning algorithm that may be used to find clusters of similar events in the input data and is able to identify some underlying dynamic structures of the multi-dimensional datasets. SOM is applied to the wavelet coefficients for intramonthly, intermonthly and interannual oscillations, obtaining self-organised maps which objectively identify similar zones of precipitation behaviour over the Iberian Peninsula. The homogeneity of the patterns is also studied by means of non-parametric correlations, energy scalograms and tests of significance. The intramonthly, intermonthly and interannual waves resulted in seven, five and three SOM patterns, respectively. As timescale increases, the wavelet series coefficients tend to be highly clustered. The results indicate that as the oscillation frequencies decrease, the Iberian precipitation behaves more linearly.     

Multi-decadal scale variability in autumn-winter rainfall in south-western Australia since 1655 AD as reconstructed from tree rings of Callitris columellaris

We present the first tree-ring based reconstruction of rainfall for the Lake Tay region of southern Western Australia. We examined the response of Callitris columellaris to rainfall, the southern oscillation index (SOI), the southern annular mode (SAM) and surface sea temperature (SST) anomalies in the southern Indian Ocean. The 350-year chronology was most strongly correlated with rainfall averaged over the autumn-winter period (March–September; r = ?0.70, P < 0.05) and SOI values averaged over June–August (r = 0.25, P < 0.05). The chronology was not correlated with SAM or SSTs. We reconstructed autumn-winter rainfall back to 1655, where current and previous year tree-ring indices explained 54% of variation in rainfall over the 1902–2005 calibration period. Some variability in rainfall was lost during the reconstruction: variability of actual rainfall (expressed as normalized values) over the calibration period was 0.78, while variability of the normalized reconstructed values over the same period was 0.44. Nevertheless, the reconstruction, combined with spectral analysis, revealed that rainfall naturally varies from relatively dry periods lasting to 20–30 years to 15-year long periods of above average rainfall. This variability in rainfall may reflect low-frequency variation in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation rather than the effect of SAM or SSTs.     

Analysis of UVB values in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula

Records of UV data started in Madrid at the beginning of the 90's decade. After some quality control on the data a seven year period from 1996 to 2002 was selected to perform an analysis of daily and seasonal variability of solar ultraviolet B (UVB) values at the centre of the Iberian Peninsula. Instruments used are a Brewer MKIV spectrophotometer and a YES UVB-1 broadband pyranometer. Both instruments provided integrated daily values according with the Diffey spectrum although they have different measurement procedures. Data statistics from each instrument for the same period and statistical relationships between daily values from both instruments are shown. As broadband YES provided a record with fewer time gaps, analysis of UVI extreme values is performed using that instrument. The relationship between UVB values with ozone, cloudiness and visible radiation has been described in several papers for different places in the world. In this paper, those relationships are shown for Madrid. A discussion about specific problems found when trying to isolate every effective factor is also included. Some of those relationships could be helpful to retrieve UVB values from other ancillary data as visible radiation and cloudiness. Finally, a detailed study for 10 days in June 1997 when the maximum record of daily values from the present time series was obtained, highlight the close correlation between total ozone content and the daily variability of UVB for similar amounts of incoming radiation.     

Secular trends in high northern latitude temperature reconstructions based on tree rings

Boreal tree-ring records from high latitude North America, Scandinavia and Russia provide baseline data reflecting long-term trends in Arctic annual temperature. Reconstructions from 1682–1968 indicate the latter part and termination of the Little Ice Age and that the northern regions are now warmer by comparison. The resulting high-resolution, extended temperature time series allows examination of underlying causes of climatic change not possible using only the instrumental record. The recent recorded data for the Arctic show recovery from the cooling in the 1950's–1960's. The overall evaluation confirms that the high northern latitudes are now in an anomalously warm state relative to the past three centuries.     

树轮记录的过去359a阿勒泰地区初夏气温变化

利用采集自阿尔泰山南坡森林上限3个采样点的西伯利亚落叶松(Larix sibirica Ledeb.)树芯样本,研制其树轮宽度年表。与区域内6个气象站点观测数据的相关分析结果表明,标准化宽度年表与6月平均气温相关较好,最高相关系数达0.675（p<0.0001）。使用逐步回归分析方法,建立温度的重建方程,调整自由度后的方差解释量为45.6%（1962~2012年）。过去359年来,阿勒泰地区平均气温变化存在7个偏暖（1667~1681年、1714~1728年、1747~1779年、1787~1800年、1862~1887年、1935~1968年、2000~2012年）和6个偏冷阶段（1682~1713年、1729~1746年、1780~1786年、1801~1861年、1888~1934年、1969~1999年）。并存在5个温暖年、54个偏暖年、252个正常年、37个偏冷年、以及11个寒冷年。6月平均温度的最高值出现在1830年（22.35℃）,最低温度出现在1985年（17.87℃）。功率谱分析显示该重建序列存在30.0年、7.4年的显著准周期（p<0.05）和6.4年的较显著准周期（p<0.10）。