Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio
In climate change science the term ‘Arctic amplification’ has become synonymous with an estimation of the ratio of a change in Arctic temperatures compared with a broader reference change under the same period, usually in global temperatures. Here, it is shown that this definition of Arctic amplific...
Published in: | Scientific Reports |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Nature Publishing Group
2016
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962034/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27461918 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep30469 |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4962034 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4962034 2023-05-15T14:33:50+02:00 Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio Hind, Alistair Zhang, Qiong Brattström, Gudrun 2016-07-27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962034/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27461918 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep30469 en eng Nature Publishing Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962034/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27461918 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep30469 Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2016 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/srep30469 2016-08-14T00:08:06Z In climate change science the term ‘Arctic amplification’ has become synonymous with an estimation of the ratio of a change in Arctic temperatures compared with a broader reference change under the same period, usually in global temperatures. Here, it is shown that this definition of Arctic amplification comes with a suite of difficulties related to the statistical properties of the ratio estimator itself. Most problematic is the complexity of categorizing uncertainty in Arctic amplification when the global, or reference, change in temperature is close to 0 over a period of interest, in which case it may be impossible to set bounds on this uncertainty. An important conceptual distinction is made between the ‘Ratio of Means’ and ‘Mean Ratio’ approaches to defining a ratio estimate of Arctic amplification, as they do not only possess different uncertainty properties regarding the amplification factor, but are also demonstrated to ask different scientific questions. Uncertainty in the estimated range of the Arctic amplification factor using the latest global climate models and climate forcing scenarios is expanded upon and shown to be greater than previously demonstrated for future climate projections, particularly using forcing scenarios with lower concentrations of greenhouse gases. Text Arctic Climate change PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Scientific Reports 6 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Article |
spellingShingle |
Article Hind, Alistair Zhang, Qiong Brattström, Gudrun Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio |
topic_facet |
Article |
description |
In climate change science the term ‘Arctic amplification’ has become synonymous with an estimation of the ratio of a change in Arctic temperatures compared with a broader reference change under the same period, usually in global temperatures. Here, it is shown that this definition of Arctic amplification comes with a suite of difficulties related to the statistical properties of the ratio estimator itself. Most problematic is the complexity of categorizing uncertainty in Arctic amplification when the global, or reference, change in temperature is close to 0 over a period of interest, in which case it may be impossible to set bounds on this uncertainty. An important conceptual distinction is made between the ‘Ratio of Means’ and ‘Mean Ratio’ approaches to defining a ratio estimate of Arctic amplification, as they do not only possess different uncertainty properties regarding the amplification factor, but are also demonstrated to ask different scientific questions. Uncertainty in the estimated range of the Arctic amplification factor using the latest global climate models and climate forcing scenarios is expanded upon and shown to be greater than previously demonstrated for future climate projections, particularly using forcing scenarios with lower concentrations of greenhouse gases. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hind, Alistair Zhang, Qiong Brattström, Gudrun |
author_facet |
Hind, Alistair Zhang, Qiong Brattström, Gudrun |
author_sort |
Hind, Alistair |
title |
Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio |
title_short |
Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio |
title_full |
Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio |
title_fullStr |
Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio |
title_full_unstemmed |
Problems encountered when defining Arctic amplification as a ratio |
title_sort |
problems encountered when defining arctic amplification as a ratio |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962034/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27461918 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep30469 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4962034/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27461918 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep30469 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep30469 |
container_title |
Scientific Reports |
container_volume |
6 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1766307021341065216 |