Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming
Record-breaking statistics are combined here with a geographic mode of exploration to introduce a record-breaking map. We examine time series of sea surface temperature (SST) values and show that high SST records have been broken far more frequently than the expected rate for a trend-free random var...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:acp102858 2023-05-15T17:33:40+02:00 Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming Sena, Elisa T. Koren, Ilan Altaratz, Orit Kostinski, Alexander B. 2022-12-22 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-16111-2022 https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/16111/2022/ eng eng doi:10.5194/acp-22-16111-2022 https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/16111/2022/ eISSN: 1680-7324 Text 2022 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-16111-2022 2022-12-26T17:22:42Z Record-breaking statistics are combined here with a geographic mode of exploration to introduce a record-breaking map. We examine time series of sea surface temperature (SST) values and show that high SST records have been broken far more frequently than the expected rate for a trend-free random variable (TFRV) over the vast majority of oceans (83 % of the grid cells). This, together with the asymmetry between high and low records and their deviation from a TFRV, indicates SST warming over most oceans, obtained using a distribution-independent, robust, and simple-to-use method. The spatial patterns of this warming are coherent and reveal islands of cooling, such as the “cold blob” in the North Atlantic and a surprising elliptical area in the Southern Ocean, near the Ross Sea gyre, not previously reported. The method was also applied to evaluate a global climate model (GCM), which reproduced the observed records during the study period. The distribution of records from the GCM pre-industrial (PI) control run samples was similar to the one from a TFRV, suggesting that the contribution of a suitably constrained internal variability to the observed record-breaking trends is negligible. Future forecasts show striking SST trends, with even more frequent high records and less frequent low records. Text North Atlantic Ross Sea Southern Ocean Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Ross Sea Southern Ocean Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 22 24 16111 16122 |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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English |
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Record-breaking statistics are combined here with a geographic mode of exploration to introduce a record-breaking map. We examine time series of sea surface temperature (SST) values and show that high SST records have been broken far more frequently than the expected rate for a trend-free random variable (TFRV) over the vast majority of oceans (83 % of the grid cells). This, together with the asymmetry between high and low records and their deviation from a TFRV, indicates SST warming over most oceans, obtained using a distribution-independent, robust, and simple-to-use method. The spatial patterns of this warming are coherent and reveal islands of cooling, such as the “cold blob” in the North Atlantic and a surprising elliptical area in the Southern Ocean, near the Ross Sea gyre, not previously reported. The method was also applied to evaluate a global climate model (GCM), which reproduced the observed records during the study period. The distribution of records from the GCM pre-industrial (PI) control run samples was similar to the one from a TFRV, suggesting that the contribution of a suitably constrained internal variability to the observed record-breaking trends is negligible. Future forecasts show striking SST trends, with even more frequent high records and less frequent low records. |
format |
Text |
author |
Sena, Elisa T. Koren, Ilan Altaratz, Orit Kostinski, Alexander B. |
spellingShingle |
Sena, Elisa T. Koren, Ilan Altaratz, Orit Kostinski, Alexander B. Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming |
author_facet |
Sena, Elisa T. Koren, Ilan Altaratz, Orit Kostinski, Alexander B. |
author_sort |
Sena, Elisa T. |
title |
Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming |
title_short |
Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming |
title_full |
Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming |
title_fullStr |
Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming |
title_full_unstemmed |
Record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming |
title_sort |
record-breaking statistics detect islands of cooling in a sea of warming |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-16111-2022 https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/16111/2022/ |
geographic |
Ross Sea Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Ross Sea Southern Ocean |
genre |
North Atlantic Ross Sea Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic Ross Sea Southern Ocean |
op_source |
eISSN: 1680-7324 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/acp-22-16111-2022 https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/22/16111/2022/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-16111-2022 |
container_title |
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
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22 |
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24 |
container_start_page |
16111 |
op_container_end_page |
16122 |
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1766132248439947264 |