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Modeling
the Possible Causes of Decadal-to-Millennial-Scale Variability
Rind, D. and J. Overpeck 1995 In: The Natural Variability of the Climate System on Decade-to-century Time-scales. National Academy of Sciences Press, pp. 187-197 ABSTRACT There are at least five possible causes of decade-to-century-scale climate variability: inherent ("random") variability in the atmosphere (i.e., no external forcing); inherent or forced variability in the atmosphere-ocean system (e.g., North Atlantic Deep Water fluctuations); solar variability (e.g., the Maunder Minimum); variability in volcanic aerosol loading of the atmosphere (e.g., Tambora); and atmospheric-trace gas variability (e.g., CO2, methane). Modeling experiments conducted for each of these potential mechanisms show that they have somewhat different signatures, which may allow for discrimination between them in the climate record. The necessary magnitudes of forcing required from the different mechanisms to product the past climate variations also allow us to estimate the likelihood of their affecting future global change. We conclude that none of them can be dismissed, and we should be prepared for the possibility that several have acted in concert to produce the variability seen in the climate record. | Mailing
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Studies Laboratory, Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona Last updated
August 11, 2003
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