Natural Climate Variability on Decade-to-Century Time Scales (1995) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
CONCLUSIONS
CONCLUSIONS
Pages 599-604
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 600... ...
and in 130 years of global surfaceair temperature data (see Keeling and Whorf's paper, also in Chapter 2, and Figure 1 in Michael Ghil's essay introducing atmospheric modeling in Chapter 35. Quasi NATURAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY ON DECADE-TO-CENTURY TIME SCALES decadal periodicities in North Atlantic ocean properties have been documented at the surface (by Deser and Blackmon, e.g.)
|
From page 601... ...
· Recent modeling studies suggest that significant changes in the deep-water circulation may occur over time scales of decades to centuries, and that these changes may critically affect climate. The thermohaline circulation is fairly sensitive to local climate conditions in the high-latitude oceans, particularly air/sea/ice exchange in 601 the sub-polar regions of the North and South Atlantic oceans (in Chapter 3, see the papers by Mysak and by McDermott and Sarachik; in Chapter 4, see Delworth et al.)
|
From page 602... ...
Separation of natural climate fluctuation and anthropogenic change will require additional evidence involving a well-chosen combination of modeling studies and observational studies. As models improve, a better data base one with a longer time span, broader spatial representation, and more climate variables will permit the verification of the distinct signatures within, or key relationships between the specific components of the climate system that the models reveal.
|
From page 603... ...
We need to understand and be able to predict this change so that we can adapt to it or modify our contribution to it. Given our recent advances in documenting past climate change, monitoring modern climate processes, and improving process and coupled atmosphere-ocean models, the study of natural climate variability represents an area of great scientific opportunity one that is important not only for guiding policy, but for understanding how our present biological and geochemical environment evolved and learning to predict how it may respond to natural variations or anthropogenic changes.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.