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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS,
VOL. 31,
L13208,
doi:10.1029/2004GL020103,
2004
Altitude dependence of atmospheric temperature trends: Climate models versus observation
David H. Douglass
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA
Benjamin D. Pearson
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA
S. Fred Singer
Science & Environmental Policy Project, Arlington, Virginia, USA
Abstract
As a consequence of greenhouse forcing, all state-of-the-art general circulation models predict a positive temperature trend
that is greater for the troposphere than the surface. This predicted positive trend increases in value with altitude until
it reaches a maximum ratio with respect to the surface of as much as 1.5 to 2.0 at about 200–400 hPa. However, the temperature
trends from several independent observational data sets show decreasing as well as mostly negative values. This disparity
indicates that the three models examined here fail to account for the effects of greenhouse forcings.
Received 29
March
2004;
accepted 16
June
2004;
published 9
July
2004.
Index Terms: 1610 Global Change: Atmosphere (0315, 0325); 1635 Global Change: Oceans (4203); 1699 Global Change: General or miscellaneous.
Subscriber Access to Full Article (Nonsubscribers may purchase for $9.00, Includes print PDF, file size: 202008 bytes)
Citation: Douglass, D. H., B. D. Pearson, and S. F. Singer
(2004),
Altitude dependence of atmospheric temperature trends: Climate models versus observation,
Geophys. Res. Lett.,
31,
L13208,
doi:10.1029/2004GL020103.
Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.
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