Detection of Regional Surface Temperature Trends

Abstract Trends in surface temperature over the last 100, 50, and 30 yr at individual grid boxes in a 5° latitude–longitude grid are compared with model estimates of the natural internal variability of these trends and with the model response to increasing greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols. Three different climate models are used to provide estimates of the internal variability of trends, one of which appears to overestimate the observed variability of surface temperature at interannual and 5-yr time scales. Significant warming trends are found at a large fraction of the individual grid boxes over the globe, a much larger fraction than can be explained by internal climate variations. The observed warming trends over the last 50 and 30 yr are consistent with the modeled response to increasing greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols in most of the models. However, in some regions, the observed century-scale trends are significantly larger than the modeled response to increasing greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere. Warming trends consistent with the response to anthropogenic forcing are detected at scales on the order of 500 km in many regions of the globe.