A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change

作者：James E. Hansen, Reto A. Ruedy, M. Sato, Marc L. Imhoff, Walter Lawrence, David R. Easterling, T. C. Peterson, Thomas R. Karl · 发表于：Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres · 年份：2001 · DOI：10.1029/2001jd000354 · 被引用次数：588 · 研究领域：Climate variability and models、Urban Heat Island Mitigation、Impact of Light on Environment and Health

We compare the United States and global surface air temperature changes of the past century using the current Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis and the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) record [Karl et al., 1990]. Changes in the GISS analysis subsequent to the documentation by Hansen et al. [1999] are as follows: (1) incorporation of corrections for time‐of‐observation bias and station history adjustments in the United States based on Easterling et al. [1996a], (2) reclassification of rural, small‐town, and urban stations in the United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico based on satellite measurements of night light intensity [Imhoff et al., 1997], and (3) a more flexible urban adjustment than that employed by Hansen et al. [1999], including reliance on only unlit stations in the United States and rural stations in the rest of the world for determining long‐term trends. We find evidence of local human effects (“urban warming”) even in suburban and small‐town surface air temperature records, but the effect is modest in magnitude and conceivably could be an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records. We suggest further studies, including more complete satellite night light analyses, which may clarify the potential urban effect. There are inherent uncertainties in the long‐term temperature change at least of the order of 0.1°C for both the U.S. mean and the global mean. Nevertheless, it is clear that the post‐1930s cooling was much l...