On the relationship between diurnal temperature range and surface solar radiation in Europe

Makowski, K.; Jaeger, Eric B.; Chiacchio, Marc; Wild, Martin; Ewen, Tracy; Ohmura, Atsumu

doi:10.1029/2008jd011104

Cited by 84 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…After the late 1950s, it began to decrease until the 1980s, and since the 1990s increased. These variations of DTR are consistent with those of observed R s (6,24,30). The better agreement of warm-season variability of DTR with that of R s is consistent with the larger R s during warm seasons.…”

Section: Significancesupporting

confidence: 79%

“…S3). The agreement between regional DTR and R s over Europe has also been confirmed by both data analysis (10) and model simulation (24). In China, the decrease of R s is in good agreement with the reduction of DTR before 1990 (11).…”

Section: Significancesupporting

confidence: 65%

“…Evidently the impact of R s on DTR in these areas is masked by the impact of energy advection with regular alteration between land breezes and ocean breezes. This masking can be substantially reduced by regional averaging of DTR and R s (6,24).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Contribution of solar radiation to decadal temperature variability over land

Wang

Dickinson

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

131

117

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Global air temperature has become the primary metric for judging global climate change. The variability of global temperature on a decadal timescale is still poorly understood. This paper examines further one suggested hypothesis, that variations in solar radiation reaching the surface (R s ) have caused much of the observed decadal temperature variability. Because R s only heats air during the day, its variability is plausibly related to the variability of diurnal temperature range (daily maximum temperature minus its minimum). We show that the variability of diurnal temperature range is consistent with the variability of R s at timescales from monthly to decadal. This paper uses long comprehensive datasets for diurnal temperature range to establish what has been the contribution of R s to decadal temperature variability. It shows that R s over land globally peaked in the 1930s, substantially decreased from the 1940s to the 1970s, and changed little after that. Reduction of R s caused a reduction of more than 0.2°C in mean temperature during May to October from the 1940s through the 1970s, and a reduction of nearly 0.2°C in mean air temperature during November to April from the 1960s through the 1970s. This cooling accounts in part for the near-constant temperature from the 1930s into the 1970s. Since then, neither the rapid increase in temperature from the 1970s through the 1990s nor the slowdown of warming in the early twenty-first century appear to be significantly related to changes of R s .global dimming | global brightening | global warming | surface incident solar radiation | decadal variability G lobal temperature has become the primary metric for judging global climate change, although many other factors are recognized to be of comparable importance. The overall increase of global temperature over the last century has been largely attributed to the increase of greenhouse gases (1). Less well understood are the reasons for the variability of this increase on a decadal timescale. In particular, warming from 1900 to 1940 was followed by three decades of flat or slightly decreasing temperature, then three decades of very rapid temperature increase, then so far in this century, very little additional increase. The two most plausible explanations for the decadal variability are natural climate variability and variable degrees of cooling from anthropogenic releases of sulfur gas producing sulfate aerosols (2). This effect has long been proposed as a mechanism to counter greenhouse warming (3), has become the basis for many geoengineering proposals (4), and has been used to attribute the lack of warming so far this century to the rapid growth of aerosols in Asia (5).Besides the difference in sign of their temperature effects, sulfate aerosols are distinguished from greenhouse gases in that they only affect daytime radiation, i.e., surface incident solar radiation (R s ). Some kinds of natural variability can also act through affecting R s , i.e., those involving cloud properties.Changes of aerosol loading and ...

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Section: Significancesupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Significancesupporting

confidence: 65%

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Contribution of solar radiation to decadal temperature variability over land

Wang

Dickinson

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

131

117

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“…Wild et al (2007) found a strong connection in the observations between changes in DTR and those in surface solar radiation (from dimming to brightening) during the 1980s and with the increasing GHGs. Liu et al (2004) and Makowski et al (2009) reported a similar DSW-DTR connection. Considering the substantial spatiotemporal variability in cloud cover and precipitation, Zhou et al (2008) suggest that enhanced GHGs and aerosols as a steady and global forcing are likely to largely determine the observed long-term DTR trends at large spatial scales.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 65%

Detection and attribution of anthropogenic forcing to diurnal temperature range changes from 1950 to 1999: comparing multi-model simulations with observations

et al. 2009

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Observations show that the surface diurnal temperature range (DTR) has decreased since 1950s over most global land areas due to a smaller warming in maximum temperatures (T max ) than in minimum temperatures (T min ). This paper analyzes the trends and variability in T max , T min , and DTR over land in observations and 48 simulations from 12 global coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models for the later half of the 20th century. It uses the modeled changes in surface downward solar and longwave radiation to interpret the modeled temperature changes. When anthropogenic and natural forcings are included, the models generally reproduce observed major features of the warming of T max and T min and the reduction of DTR. As expected the greenhouse gases enhanced surface downward longwave radiation (DLW) explains most of the warming of T max and T min while decreased surface downward shortwave radiation (DSW) due to increasing aerosols and water vapor contributes most to the decreases in DTR in the models. When only natural forcings are used, none of the observed trends are simulated. The simulated DTR decreases are much smaller than the observed (mainly due to the small simulated T min trend) but still outside the range of natural internal variability estimated from the models. The much larger observed decrease in DTR suggests the possibility of additional regional effects of anthropogenic forcing that the models can not realistically simulate, likely connected to changes in cloud cover, precipitation, and soil moisture. The small magnitude of the simulated DTR trends may be attributed to the lack of an increasing trend in cloud cover and deficiencies in charactering aerosols and important surface and boundary-layer processes in the models.

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“…These include for example their implications for evaporation changes (Wang et al, 2010), for changes in the intensity of the global water cycle (Wild, 2012), for global warming and diurnal temperature range Makowski et al, 2009;Wang and Dickinson, 2013a), for changes in isoprene emissions (Stavrakou et al, 2014), and for glacier melt Huss et al, 2009). Further, GEBA data were used for the assessment of the worldwide variation in diffuse and direct shortwave radiation of relevance for biosphere growth, agricultural production, and tree-ring density (Mercado et al, 2009;Wild et al, 2012;Stine and Huybers, 2014).…”

Section: Implications For Climate Change and Applied Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) version 2017: a database for worldwide measured surface energy fluxes

Wild

Ohmura

Schär

et al. 2017

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

Self Cite

114

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Abstract. The Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) is a database for the central storage of the worldwide measured energy fluxes at the Earth's surface, maintained at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). This paper documents the status of the GEBA version 2017 dataset, presents the new web interface and user access, and reviews the scientific impact that GEBA data had in various applications. GEBA has continuously been expanded and updated and contains in its 2017 version around 500 000 monthly mean entries of various surface energy balance components measured at 2500 locations. The database contains observations from 15 surface energy flux components, with the most widely measured quantity available in GEBA being the shortwave radiation incident at the Earth's surface (global radiation). Many of the historic records extend over several decades. GEBA contains monthly data from a variety of sources, namely from the World Radiation Data Centre (WRDC) in St. Petersburg, from national weather services, from different research networks (BSRN, ARM, SURFRAD), from peer-reviewed publications, project and data reports, and from personal communications. Quality checks are applied to test for gross errors in the dataset. GEBA has played a key role in various research applications, such as in the quantification of the global energy balance, in the discussion of the anomalous atmospheric shortwave absorption, and in the detection of multi-decadal variations in global radiation, known as "global dimming" and "brightening". GEBA is further extensively used for the evaluation of climate models and satellite-derived surface flux products. On a more applied level, GEBA provides the basis for engineering applications in the context of solar power generation, water management, agricultural production and tourism. GEBA is publicly accessible through the internet via http://www.geba.ethz.ch. Supplementary data are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.873078.

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On the relationship between diurnal temperature range and surface solar radiation in Europe

Cited by 84 publications

References 52 publications

Contribution of solar radiation to decadal temperature variability over land

Contribution of solar radiation to decadal temperature variability over land

Detection and attribution of anthropogenic forcing to diurnal temperature range changes from 1950 to 1999: comparing multi-model simulations with observations

The Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) version 2017: a database for worldwide measured surface energy fluxes

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