New research brings satellite measurements and global climate models closer
http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/new-research-brings-satellite-measurements-and-global-climate-models-closer[font face=Serif]May 7, 2012
[font size=5]New research brings satellite measurements and global climate models closer[/font]
By Nancy Gohring
News and Information
[font size=3]One popular climate record that shows a slower atmospheric warming trend than other studies contains a data calibration problem, and when the problem is corrected the results fall in line with other records and climate models, according to a new University of Washington study.
The finding is important because it helps confirm that models that simulate global warming agree with observations, said Stephen Po-Chedley, a UW graduate student in atmospheric sciences who wrote the paper with Qiang Fu, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.
They identified a problem with the satellite temperature record put together by the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Researchers there were the first to release such a record, in 1989, and it has often been cited by climate change skeptics to cast doubt on models that show the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming.
In their paper, appearing this month in the American Meteorological Societys
Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, Po-Chedley and Fu examined the record from the researchers in Alabama along with satellite temperature records that were subsequently developed by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and
Remote Sensing Systems.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-11-00147.1