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Global Surface Temperature Change and Uncertainties Since 1861The objective of this talk is to analyze the warming trend and its uncertainties of the global and hemi-spheric surface temperatures. By the method of statistical optimal averaging scheme, the land surface air temperature and sea surface temperature observational data are used to compute the spatial average annual mean surface air temperature. The optimal averaging method is derived from the minimization of the mean square error between the true and estimated averages and uses the empirical orthogonal functions. The method can accurately estimate the errors of the spatial average due to observational gaps and random measurement errors. In addition, quantified are three independent uncertainty factors: urbanization, change of the in situ observational practices and sea surface temperature data corrections. Based on these uncertainties, the best linear fit to annual global surface temperature gives an increase of 0.61 +/- 0.16 C between 1861 and 2000. This lecture will also touch the topics on the impact of global change on nature and environment. as well as the latest assessment methods for the attributions of global change.
Document ID
20020081019
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Shen, Samuel S. P.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Lau, William K. M.
Date Acquired
August 20, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2002
Subject Category
Environment Pollution
Meeting Information
Meeting: CAIMS (Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society )
Location: Calgary
Country: Canada
Start Date: June 8, 2002
End Date: June 10, 2002
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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