US Geological Survey

 

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2012

Citation

Progress in Physical Geography 37(1), pp. 29–35. DOI: 10.1177/0309133312460074

Comments

U. S. government work.

Abstract

Mean global surface air temperature (SAT) and sea surface temperature (SST) display substantial variability on timescales ranging from annual to multi-decadal. We review the key recent literature on connections between global SAT and SST variability. Although individual ocean influences on SAT have been recognized, the combined contributions of worldwide SST variability on the global SAT signal have not been clearly identified in observed data.Weanalyze these relations using principal components of detrended SST, and find that removing the underlying combined annual, decadal, and multi-decadal SST variability from the SAT time series reveals a nearly monotonic global warming trend in SAT since about 1900.

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