Is a Recent Surge in Global Warming Detectable?
Abstract
The global mean surface temperature is widely studied to monitor climate change. A current debate centers around whether there has been a recent (post-1970s) surge/acceleration in the warming rate. This paper addresses whether an acceleration in the warming rate is detectable from a statistical perspective. We use changepoint models, which are statistical techniques specifically designed for identifying structural changes in time series. Four global mean surface temperature records over 1850-2023 are scrutinized within. Our results show limited evidence for a warming surge; in most surface temperature time series, no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s is detected. As such, we estimate minimum changes in the warming trend for a surge to be detectable in the near future.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2403.03388,
title = {Is a Recent Surge in Global Warming Detectable?},
author = {Claudie Beaulieu and Colin Gallagher and Rebecca Killick and Robert Lund and Xueheng Shi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.03388},
year = {2024}
}