- Climate oscillation
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A climate oscillation is any oscillation within global or regional climate. These fluctuations in atmospheric temperature, sea surface temperature, precipitation or other parameters can be quasi-periodic, often occurring on inter-annual, multi-annual, decadal, multidecadal, century-wide, millennial or longer timescales. A prominent example is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, involving sea surface temperatures along a strech of the equatorial Central and East Pacific Ocean and the western coast of tropical South America, but which affects climate worldwide.
Contents
Origins and causes
There are close correlations between Earth's climate oscillations and astronomical factors (barycenter changes, solar variation, cosmic ray flux, Milankovic cycles), and modes of heat distribution between the ocean-atmosphere climate system. In some cases, current, historical and paleoclimatological natural oscillations may be masked by significant volcanic eruptions, impact events, irregularities in climate proxy data, positive feedback processes or anthropogenic emissions of substances such as greenhouse gases.[1][2]
Effects
Extreme phases of short-term climate oscillations such as ENSO can result in characteristic patterns of floods and droughts, monsoonal disruption and extreme temperatures in the form of heat waves and cold waves. Shorter-term climate oscillations typically do not directly result in climate change. However, the effects of underlying climate trends such as recent global warming and oscillations can be cumulative to global temperature, producing shorter-term fluctuations in the instrumental and satellite temperature records.
References
- ^ Scafetta, Nicola (May 15, 2010). "Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations". Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 72: 951–970. doi:10.1016/j.jastp.2010.04.015. http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
- ^ Curry, Judith. "Scafetta on climate oscillations". WordPress. Climate Etc.. http://judithcurry.com/2011/04/14/scafetta-on-climate-oscillations/. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
External links
- El Niño's Extended Family: An Introduction to the Cyclic Patterns that Determine Global Weather - NASA Earth Observatory
- Earth Changes Gallery: Climate Oscillations - Michael Wells Mandeville
- 5.2 Internal climate variability - Catholic University of Louvain
- Understanding global climate patterns - USA Today, April 19, 2006
- Natural Climate Oscillations of Short Duration and the Long Term Climate Warming - Sorting Out the Climate System - USGCRP, March 20, 2000
- Oceanic and Atmospheric Climate Data - Climate Prediction Center, NOAA
- Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet - NASA Climate Website
Climate oscillations Climate oscillations 8.2 kiloyear event · Antarctic Circumpolar Wave · Antarctic oscillation · Arctic dipole anomaly · Arctic oscillation · Atlantic Equatorial mode · Atlantic multidecadal oscillation · Bond event · Dansgaard–Oeschger event · Diurnal cycle · El Niño-Southern Oscillation · Equatorial Indian Ocean oscillation · Glacial cycles · Indian Ocean Dipole · Madden–Julian oscillation · Milankovitch cycles · North Atlantic oscillation · North Pacific Oscillation · Orbital forcing · Pacific decadal oscillation · Pacific-North American teleconnection pattern · Quasi-biennial oscillation · Seasons · Solar variabilityCategories:- Climatology
- Climate change
- Oscillation
- Atmospheric science stubs
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