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It is an issue of great attention but yet not very clear whether lightning activities increase or decrease on a warmer world. Reeve et al. presented that lightning activities in global land and the Northern Hemisphere land have positive response to the increase of wet bulb temperature at 1000hPa. is this positive response restricted only to wet bulb temperature or in land? What is the response of global lightning activities (in both land and ocean) to the global surface air temperature variation like? This paper, based on the 5-year or 8-year OTD/LIS satellite-based lightning detecting data and the NCEP reanalysis data, makes a reanalysis of the response of the global and regional lightning activities to temperature variations. The results show that on the inter-annual time scale the global total flash rate has positive response to the variation in global surface air temperature, with the sensitivity of 17±7% K-1. Also, the seasonal mean flash rate of continents all over the world and that of continents in the Northern Hemisphere have sensitive positive response to increase of global surface air temperature and wet bulb temperature, with the sensitivity of about 13±5% K-1. a bit lower than estimation of 40% K-1 in Reeve et al. However, the Southern Hemisphere and other areas like the tropics show no significant correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kretzschmar et al., in a comment in 2017, use the spread in the output of aerosol-climate models to argue that the models refute the hypothesis (presented in a paper by Stevens in 2015) that for the mid-twentieth-century warming to be consistent with observations, then the present-day aerosol forcing, must be less negative than −1 W m−2. The main point of contention is the nature of the relationship between global SO2 emissions and In contrast to the concave (log-linear) relationship used by Stevens and in earlier studies, whereby becomes progressively less sensitive to SO2 emissions, some models suggest a convex relationship, which would imply a less negative lower bound. The model that best exemplifies this difference, and that is most clearly in conflict with the hypothesis of Stevens, does so because of an implausible aerosol response to the initial rise in anthropogenic aerosol precursor emissions in East and South Asia-already in 1975 this model's clear-sky reflectance from anthropogenic aerosol over the North Pacific exceeds present-day estimates of the clear-sky reflectance by the total aerosol. The authors perform experiments using a new (observationally constrained) climatology of anthropogenic aerosols to further show that the effects of changing patterns of aerosol and aerosol precursor emissions during the late twentieth century have, for the same global emissions, relatively little effect on These findings suggest that the behavior Kretzschmar et al. identify as being in conflict with the lower bound in Stevens arises from an implausible relationship between SO2 emissions and and thus provides little basis for revising this lower bound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the abrupt increase in the oceanic and atmospheric temperature in the Northern Hemisphere at the beginning of the Holocene, approximately 11 000 yr before the present. De Boer and Nof hypothesized that, at that time, the Bering Strait (BS) opened up abruptly because of the breakup of an ice dam (by rising sea levels). It is proposed further here that this sudden opening caused an abrupt increase in the mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere. An analytical, coupled ocean–atmosphere model is applied to the North Atlantic in an attempt to quantify the temperature change resulting from the opening of the BS. Heat, salt, and mass are all conserved within a box in the North Atlantic. A convection condition allows water to enter the deep layer and the island rule relates the wind field to the mass fluxes. The conventional approach that the meridional overturning cell (MOC) was not operating during the Younger Dryas because of an overwhelming freshwater flux is adopted here. Opening the BS in the early Holocene allowed these freshwater anomalies to be flushed out into the Pacific, reviving convection and the transport of heat northward. Restarting convection with an open BS increases mean oceanic and atmospheric temperature by 3° and 23°C, respectively. These values are comparable to those found in both the Centre Européen de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Géosciences de l’Environnement (CEREGE) alkenone and Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP 2) ice core records. Of course, restarting convection increases the temperature even with a closed BS, but in the closed BS case the oceanic increase is slightly higher (4°C instead of 3°C), whereas the atmospheric is much lower (17.5°C instead of 23°C). This is because, by requiring a continuous sea level around the Americas, an open BS allows the wind field to limit the amount of Southern Ocean water that enters the South Atlantic. This controlled volume flux (8 Sv) is considerably smaller than that allowed into the Atlantic in the no-wind control closed BS case (17 Sv). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that ice duration in lakes and rivers over the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the 19th and 20th centuries in response to global warming. However, lake ice trends have not been well documented in Canada. Because of its size, considerable variability may exist in both freeze‐up and break‐up dates across the country. In this paper, results of the analysis of recent trends (1951–2000) in freeze‐up and break‐up dates across Canada are presented. Trends toward earlier break‐up dates are observed for most lakes during the time periods of analysis which encompass the 1990s. Freeze‐up dates, on the other hand, show few significant trends and a low degree of temporal coherence when compared with break‐up dates. These results are compared with trends in autumn and spring 0 °C isotherm dates over the time period 1966–95. Similar spatial and temporal patterns are observed, with generally significant trends toward earlier springs/break‐up dates over most of western Canada and little change in isotherm and freeze‐up dates over the majority of the country in autumn. Strong correlations (r > 0·5) between 0 °C isotherm dates and freeze‐up/break‐up dates at many locations across the country reveal the high synchrony of these variables. These results are also consistent with more recent observations of other cryospheric and atmospheric variables that indicate, in particular, a general trend toward earlier springs in the latter part of the 20th century. The results of this study provide further evidence of the robustness of lake ice as a proxy indicator of climate variability and change. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A thorough analysis of the stability of the uncoupled Rooth interhemispheric three-box model of thermohaline circulation (THC) is presented. The model consists of a northern high-latitude box, a tropical box, and a southern high-latitude box, which correspond to the northern, tropical, and southern Atlantic Ocean, respectively. Restoring boundary conditions are adopted for the temperature variables, and flux boundary conditions are adopted for the salinity variables. This paper examines how the strength of THC changes when the system undergoes forcings that are analogous to those of global warming conditions by applying the equilibrium state perturbations to the moisture and heat fluxes into the three boxes. In each class of experiments, using suitably defined metrics, the authors determine the boundary dividing the set of forcing scenarios that lead the system to equilibria characterized by a THC pattern similar to the present one from those that drive the system to equilibria with a reversed THC. Fast increases in the moisture flux into the northern high-latitude box are more effective than slow increases in leading the THC to a breakdown, while the increases of moisture flux into the southern high-latitude box strongly inhibit the breakdown and can prevent it, as in the case of slow increases in the Northern Hemisphere. High rates of heat flux increase in the Northern Hemisphere destabilize the system more effectively than low ones; increases in the heat fluxes in the Southern Hemisphere tend to stabilize the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the reconstruction of European Atlantic storm events with the contribution of a new stormy reconstruction in its central part. Three marsh environments on the island of Yeu were chosen to identify disturbing storm events from the Mid- to Late Holocene with vibracore sampling, radiocarbon dating and sedimentary analysis. Nine probable intervals of high energy deposition in these low-transport-activity environments are estimated: 600–500, near 1590, 2100–1950, 2850–2350, 3500–3270, 5400–5370, 6650–6510, near 7000 and between 7670 and 7470 calibrated years before present (cal y BP). By comparison with sedimentological paleostorm studies, we confirm six European Atlantic storm events estimated at near 600–300, 1700–1100, 2900–2500, 3500–3300, 5500–5100 and 7700–7100 cal y BP, corresponding to worldwide Holocene cooling climatic periods. A comparison with other storminess reviews of worldwide main stormy coasts shows that Holocene storms can increase during global cooling periods in the northern hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern Hemisphere cooling between 1400 and 1900 in the Common Era (CE) resulted in the expansion of glaciers during a period known as the 'Little Ice Age' (LIA). Early investigation of recent advances of Himalayan glaciers assumed that these events were synchronous with LIA advances identified in Europe, based on the appearance and position of moraines and without numerical age control. However, applications of Quaternary dating techniques such as terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating have allowed researchers to determine numerical ages for these young moraines and clarify when glacial maxima occurred. This paper reviews geochronological evidence for the last advance of glaciers in the Himalaya. The 66 ages younger than 2000 years (0-2000 CE) calculated from 138 samples collected from glacial landforms demonstrate that peak moraine building occurred between 1300 and 1600 CE, slightly earlier than the coldest period of Northern Hemisphere air temperatures. The timing of LIA advances varied spatially, likely influenced by variations in topography and meteorology across and along the mountain range. Palaeoclimate proxies indicate cooling air temperatures from 1300 CE leading to a southward shift in the Asian monsoon, increased Westerly winter precipitation and generally wetter conditions across the range around 1400 and 1800 CE. The last advance of glaciers in the Himalaya during a period of variable climate resulted from cold Northern Hemisphere air temperatures and was sustained by increased snowfall as atmospheric circulation reorganised in response to cooling during the LIA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary A paper recently published in “Nature” finds that there is sufficient evidence to identify the effects of human activity on global temperature. The study is based on northern and southern hemispheres’ time series temperature from 1865 to 1994 and the econometric technique applied is Granger causality analysis. In this note, we make some critical remarks on the conclusions of this study which seem to be rather inconsistent from a methodological point of view. It is shown that a more accurate application of Granger causality analysis to this problem may not allow the same strong and unambiguous conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported a significant rise of the global mean surface temperature over the last 100years, with a rate of warming over the last few decades almost double that over the last 100years. The rate of warming is higher at land surfaces over the Northern Hemisphere (NH), and particularly extreme warming is occurring over the Arctic. In spite of the global warming trend, some asymmetries have been observed. In a recent study, a widespread cooling over the NH during the boreal winter season was reported, although other previous studies observed a warming during this season. In this paper we report trends in winter air temperatures over the mid- to high-latitudes of the NH in the last three decades (1980–2012) using different climatic datasets at different spatial resolution (ERA-Interim, NCEP/NCAR, CRUTEM4, GHCN). Results extracted from the different datasets are consistent and show a neutral to moderate warming trend in the winter season during the last three decades. Greenland is an exception, where widespread and significant warming is observed in this time period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper discusses the newly produced temperature and precipitation series from instrumental observations in the Western Mediterranean (WM) area, dating back to 1654. The two series had a continuous swing and unstable coupling passing from correlation to anti-correlation. Only after 1950 are they permanently anti-correlated with increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation. It is not clear how long this coupling will persist. The analysis of the correlation between the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and the WM temperature anomalies and their trends shows a certain variability from 1850 to 1950; later a strong coupling between NH and WM. Results suggest that the WM climate is approaching a turning point that might locally oppose the adverse effects of Global Warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines trends in the area affected by temperature and precipitation extremes across five large-scale regions using the climate extremes index (CEI) framework. Analyzing changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in terms of areal fraction provides information from a different perspective and can be useful for climate monitoring. Trends in five temperature and precipitation components are analyzed, calculated using a new method based on standard extreme indices. These indices, derived from daily meteorological station data, are obtained from two global land-based gridded extreme indices datasets. The four continental-scale regions of Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia are analyzed over the period from 1951 to 2010, where sufficient data coverage is available. These components are also computed for the entire Northern Hemisphere, providing the first CEI results at the hemispheric scale. Results show statistically significant increases in the percentage area experiencing much-above-average warm days and nights and much-below-average cool days and nights for all regions, with the exception of North America for maximum temperature extremes. Increases in the area affected by precipitation extremes are also found for the Northern Hemisphere regions, particularly Europe and North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Last Interglacial (LIG; ca. 125,000 y ago) resulted from rapid global warming and reached global mean temperatures exceeding those of today. The LIG thus offers the opportunity to study how life may respond to future global warming. Using global occurrence databases and applying sampling-standardization, we compared reef coral diversity and distributions between the LIG and modern. Latitudinal diversity patterns are characterized by a tropical plateau today but were characterized by a pronounced equatorial trough during the LIG. This trough is governed by substantial range shifts away from the equator. Range shifts affected both leading and trailing edges of species range limits and were much more pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere than south of the equator. We argue that interglacial warming was responsible for the loss of equatorial diversity. Hemispheric differences in insolation during the LIG may explain the asymmetrical response. The equatorial retractions are surprisingly strong given that only small temperature changes have been reported in the LIG tropics. Our results suggest that the poleward range expansions of reef corals occurring with intensified global warming today may soon be followed by equatorial range retractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the anomalous patterns of the oceanic and atmospheric heat transport, transient waves and the interaction between transient waves and the mean zonal flow. The evaluation is based on simulations performed with a coupled model forced by an increase of 1 Sverdrup of freshwater flux into the North Atlantic Ocean. It is found that an increase of freshwater flux in the North Atlantic leads to a weakening in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) oceanic heat transport by up to 1 Petawatt (1015) PW but results in an intensification of the Southern Hemisphere (SH) total heat transport. This inter-hemispheric seesaw leads to substantial changes in transient wave activity which is associated with anomalous meridional temperature flux and eddy kinetic energy (EKE). During winter in the NH, weakening of the thermohaline circulation induces an increase in the storm track activity. However, a reduction in storm tracks is found over the extratropical regions of the SH. The correspondence between the anomalies of storm track intensity and Eady growth rate lead to the conclusion that changes in the transient eddy activity are mostly generated by changes in baroclinic conditions. Furthermore, calculations of the E vector show that interaction between transient and mean flow is most pronounced over the North Atlantic where stronger storm tracks enhance the mean westerlies, thus minimising the effect of changes in the oceanic heat transport. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern Hemisphere surface temperature reconstructions suggest that the late twentieth century was warmer than any other time during the past 500 years and possibly any time during the past 1,300 years (refs 1, 2). These temperature reconstructions are based largely on terrestrial records from extra-tropical or high-elevation sites; however, global average surface temperature changes closely follow those of the global tropics, which are 75% ocean. In particular, the tropical Indo-Pacific warm pool (IPWP) represents a major heat reservoir that both influences global atmospheric circulation and responds to remote northern high-latitude forcings. Here we present a decadally resolved continuous sea surface temperature (SST) reconstruction from the IPWP that spans the past two millennia and overlaps the instrumental record, enabling both a direct comparison of proxy data to the instrumental record and an evaluation of past changes in the context of twentieth century trends. Our record from the Makassar Strait, Indonesia, exhibits trends that are similar to a recent Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction. Reconstructed SST was, however, within error of modern values from about ad 1000 to ad 1250, towards the end of the Medieval Warm Period. SSTs during the Little Ice Age (approximately ad 1550–1850) were variable, and ∼0.5 to 1 °C colder than modern values during the coldest intervals. A companion reconstruction of δ18O of sea water—a sea surface salinity and hydrology indicator—indicates a tight coupling with the East Asian monsoon system and remote control of IPWP hydrology on centennial–millennial timescales, rather than a dominant influence from local SST variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent warming of Northern Hemisphere (NH) land is well documented and typically greater in winter/spring than other seasons. Physical environment responses to warming have been reported, but not details of large-area temperate growing season impacts, or consequences for ecosystems and agriculture. To date, hemispheric-scale measurements of biospheric changes have been confined to remote sensing. However, these studies did not provide detailed data needed for many investigations. Here, we show that a suite of modeled and derived measures (produced from daily maximum–minimum temperatures) linking plant development (phenology) with its basic climatic drivers provide a reliable and spatially extensive method for monitoring general impacts of global warming on the start of the growing season. Results are consistent with prior smaller area studies, confirming a nearly universal quicker onset of early spring warmth (spring indices (SI) first leaf date, −1.2 days decade−1), late spring warmth (SI first bloom date, −1.0 days decade−1; last spring day below 5°C, −1.4 days decade−1), and last spring freeze date (−1.5 days decade−1) across most temperate NH land regions over the 1955–2002 period. However, dynamics differ among major continental areas with North American first leaf and last freeze date changes displaying a complex spatial relationship. Europe presents a spatial pattern of change, with western continental areas showing last freeze dates getting earlier faster, some central areas having last freeze and first leaf dates progressing at about the same pace, while in portions of Northern and Eastern Europe first leaf dates are getting earlier faster than last freeze dates. Across East Asia last freeze dates are getting earlier faster than first leaf dates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of reconstructions of millennial-scale climate variability have been carried out in order to understand patterns of natural climate variability, on decade to century timescales, and the role of anthropogenic forcing. These reconstructions have mainly used tree-ring data and other data sets of annual to decadal resolution. Lake and ocean sediments have a lower time resolution, but provide climate information at multicentennial timescales that may not be captured by tree-ring data. Here we reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the past 2,000 years by combining low-resolution proxies with tree-ring data, using a wavelet transform technique to achieve timescale-dependent processing of the data. Our reconstruction shows larger multicentennial variability than most previous multi-proxy reconstructions, but agrees well with temperatures reconstructed from borehole measurements and with temperatures obtained with a general circulation model. According to our reconstruction, high temperatures-similar to those observed in the twentieth century before 1990-occurred around ad 1000 to 1100, and minimum temperatures that are about 0.7K below the average of 1961-90 occurred around ad 1600. This large natural variability in the past suggests an important role of natural multicentennial variability that is likely to continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which was discussed at a meeting on climate change. The experts at the meeting discussed a new proxy record of the world's temperature over the last thousand years. It was based on the analysis of tree rings at a number of sites in the northern hemisphere. It became famously known as the "hockey stick." This was because the rise in measured temperature over the last hundred years seemed, by comparison with the proxy record, to be much greater than any changes over the previous 900 years. Canadian statisticians found that there had been errors and omissions in the report. When the analysis was done properly, the data suggest that the fifteenth century was much warmer than today.

Over large parts of the Northern Hemisphere's continents temperature has been increasing during the last century. Particularly minimum temperatures show a more pronounced increase than maximum temperatures. Not only the phenological seasons, but also the potentially plant damaging late frost events are governed by the atmosphere. In case of a rise of minimum temperatures one would expect phenological phases and spring late frost events to occur earlier. In this work the question is elucidated whether plant phenology shifts at a higher or lower rate towards earlier occurrences than potential plant damaging events, like spring late frost events. Frost events based on the last occurrence of daily minimum temperatures below a certain threshold have been moving faster to earlier occurrence dates than phenological phases during the last decades at 50 climate stations in Central Europe. Trend values of frost time series range around m0.2 days/year and of phenological time series are between m0.2 and 0.0 days/year over the period from 1951-1997. 'Corylus avellana beginning of pollination' is the only one of the 13 phases considered here with a lower trend value of m0.28 days/year. Early phases are more adapted to below zero temperatures and therefore follow more closely the temperature variability. Later phases seem to have more reason to be concerned about possible late frost events and react more cautiously towards higher spring temperatures and earlier last frost dates. The risk of late frost damage for plants should have been lower during the last decade as compared to the previous decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mean temperature for the Northern Hemisphere had a warming trend from 1890 to 1950 and a cooling trend since 1950. The eastern and central United States had colder temperatures in 1961–1970 than in 1931–1960. The temperature changes were associated with an adjustment of hemispheric circulation from more frequent zonal flow between 1900 to 1950 to more frequent meridional flow since 1950. Regional variations in magnitude and direction of the change were largely related to position in relation to the upper air westerly wave pattern. Time series of individual circulation indices tend to resemble the step function model of climatic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]