A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in observed global-mean surface temperature

David W. J. Thompson (), John J. Kennedy, John M. Wallace and Phil D. Jones
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David W. J. Thompson: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
John J. Kennedy: Met Office Hadley Centre
John M. Wallace: University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
Phil D. Jones: Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

Nature, 2008, vol. 453, issue 7195, 646-649

Abstract: Global temperatures: A glitch in the forties The record of global sea-surface temperatures spanning the past century provides key evidence for global warming and is much scrutinized with a view to distinguishing between anthropogenic and natural climate variability. It has been assumed that this record is now largely free of substantial uncorrected instrument biases. Not so, according to a team assembled from four of the world's leading climate research institutes. They have identified a pronounced discontinuity in the record — a sudden drop of about 0.3 °C in global sea-surface temperature in 1945 — that coincides with a significant change in the shipboard instrumentation used to collect the data. This discontinuity is 40% as large as the century-long upward trend in temperatures, so correcting for it is likely to change the overall record and its interpretation substantially.

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1038/nature06982

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