April 1994 Prepared for CONF-9309350 United State* Department of Energy Mat Category UC-402 Office of Energy Reeearch Office of Health and Environment*! Research Carbon Dioxide rteaearch Program Washington, DC 2058S 025 Asymetric Change of Daily Temperature Range Proceedings of the International MINIMAX WORKSHOI Held Under the Auspices of NOAA National Environmental Watch and the DOE Global Change Research Program September 27-30,1993 College Park, Maryland Edited by: George Kukla Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Palisades, NY Thomas R. Karl National Climatic Data Center Ashevilie, NC Michael R. Riches Department of Energy Washington, DC Under Contract No. DE-FG02-85ER60372 DISTRIBUTION OF THIS DOCUMENT IS UNLIMITED CONTENTS Page FOREWORD i SUMMARY iii Maximum and minimum temperatures: A backward and a forward look D.E. Parker 1 Daily maximum and minimum temperature datasets archived at NCAR and some applications D. Shea, R. Jenne, W. Spangler 13 The effect of artificial discontinuities on recent trends in minimum and maximum temperatures D.R. Easterling, T.C. Peterson 19 Anthropogenic bias influences on near surface air temperatures (Abstract) T.R. Oke 33 The influence of night time cloud cover on the observed minimum temperature in China C.B. Baker, R.G. Quayle, W. Wanlin 35 Assessment of urban heat islands: A satellite perspective K.P. Gallo, J.D. Tarpley, A.L. McNab, T.R. Karl 57 Variations in winter temperature extremes on European part of the former USSR V.N. Razuvaev, E.G. Apasova, O.N. Bulygina, R.A. Martuganov 69 Fluctuation of maximum and minimum air temperatures in the Czech and the Slovak Republics R. Brazdil, M. Budikova, P. Fasko, M. Lapin 85 Observed trends in the diumal temperature range in the North Atlantic region (Abstract) P. Frich 109 Maximum and minimum temperature trends in Ireland, Italy, Thailand, Turkey and Bangladesh P.D. Jones 113 Recent changes in the diumal temperature range over Australia N. Plummer, Z. Lin, S. Torok 127 Southwest Pacific temperatures: Trends in maximum and minimum temperatures MJ. Salinger 145 Page The climate record: Charleston, South Carolina 1738-1991 DJ. Smith 161 The geographical distribution of changes in maximum and minimum temperatures B. Horton 179 Trends in maximum and minimum temperature and diurnal temperature range over India (Abstract) S.V. Singh, P.D. Jones 199 Climate variability as seen in daily temperature structure D.A. Robinson, DJ. Leathers, M.A. Palecki, K.F. Dewey 201 Cloudiness trends this century from surface observations (Abstract) K. McGuffie, A. Henderson-Sellers 231 Diurnal variations of cloud from ISCCP data B. Cairns 235 Changes in minimum and maximum temperatures at the Pic du Midi in relation with humidity and cloudiness, 1882-1934 J. Dessens, A. Biicher 253 Observed effects of aerosols on the diurnal cycle of surface air temperature (Abstract) A. Robock 273 The detection of climate change in the Arctic: An updated report H. Ye, L.S. Kalkstein, J.S. Greene 277 Simulated diurnal range in a global climate model for present and doubled CO2 climates (Abstract) J.F.B. Mitchell, J.R. Lavery, H.-X. Cao 299 Long-term changes of the diurnal temperature cycle: Implications about mechanisms of global climate change J. Hansen, M. Sato, R. Ruedy 301 DTR and cloud cover in the Nordic Countries: Observed trends and estimates for the future E. Kaas, P. Frich 327 Simulating the diurnal temperature range: Results from Phase l(a) of the Project for Intercomparison of Landsurface PararneterisationsSchemes (PELPS) A. Henderson-Sellers, A.J. Pitman 353 Page The estimate of the diurnal cycle of the carbon dioxide induced greenhouse effect: Results from 1-D models of the atmosphere vertical structure P.F. Demche ^o, G.S. Golitsyn 369 Atmospheric ozone as a climate gas W.-C. Wang, X.-Z. Liang, M.P. Dudek, D. Pollard, S.L. Thompson 373 Diurnal asymmetry of the surface air temperature response of radiative- convective model calculations to the effects of CO2 and aerosol forcing: Cloud and boundary layer process feedbacks (Abstract) G.L. Stenchikov, A. Robock 391 Predicted and observed long night and day temperature trends P.J. Michaels, P.C. Knappenberger, D.A. Gay 399 Comparison of observed seasonal maximum, minimum and diurnal temperature range with simulations from three global climate models G. Kukla, J. Gavin, M. Schlesinger, T. Karl 415 Climate forcing by anthropogenic aerosols (Abstract) R.J. Charlson 427 Trends in frequency of extreme temperatures: implications for impact studies (Abstract) R.W. Katz 429 Human health impacts of a climate change and potential mitigating factors L.S. Kalkstein 433 Responses of dynamic crop models to changes in maximum and minimum temperatures (Abstract) C. Rosenzweig 463 Potential impacts of asymmetrical day-night temperature increase on biotic systems H.A. Mooney, G.W. Koch, C.B. Field 467 APPENDIX - NEWS RELEASE 485 LIST OF ATTENDEES 491 FOREWORD Ten years ago Tom Karl and George Kukla proposed to analyze data from 130 rural stations in the USA and Canada for evidence of any change in air temperature. The most striking observation they made was a significant decrease of daily temperature range at most of the stations over the last several decades. At a smaller number of sites, together with their coworkers, they later examined how the changes in the maximum and minimum temperature related to humidity, wind speed and direction, urban-rural differences and cloud cover. The motive was to test if the change in diurnal range could be linked to the greenhouse gas induced climate change. One of the concerns of the project was that the identified change in the diurnal temperature range might have multiple and possibly undeterminable causes. The results obtained for the USA and Canada appeared consistent with the expectations of the greenhouse gas induced climate change involving cloud cover and atmospheric aerosols. However, because of the relatively limited area over which they were obtained, the general circulation models were unable to shed further light on the observed changes. The experiment was therefore expanded to include available data bases from outside North America. Contacts were made with researchers world-wide and up to century-long observational records have been analyzed. The Minimax workshop has resulted from this effort. The meeting was sponsored as a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Environmental Watch Project and the U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Science Division's Global Change Research Program. These proceedings of the workshop provide a snapshot of the state-of-the-science. Nearly 40 researchers from 10 nations report on the data, the analyses, the model studies, and the potential future implications of a continuing change of diumal temperature range. The discussion is timely, for it will contribute to the science assessment being conducted through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I would like to thank all the workshop participants for their efforts and express my appreciation to George Kukla and Tom Karl for organizing the meeting. Michael R. Riches, Acting Director Environmental Sciences Division U.S. Department of Energy 11 MINIMAX WORKSHOP SUMMARY George Kukla Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University Palisades, New York 10964 Thomas Karl NOAA/National Climatic Data Center Federal Building Asheville, North Carolina 28801 Michael Riches Environmental Sciences Division, ER-74 U.S. Department of Energy Washington, D.C. 10585 Following pages present the results of 37 scientists from ten countries who looked into the character of current global warming. They confirmed the earlier finding of Karl et al. (1993), namely that more of the warming is occurring at night thau during the day. As a result, the diurnal temperature range (DTR) is decreasing over a major part of the studied land surfaces, although areas of opposite trends were also detected. Additional observations of the phenomenon were presented at the meeting and its causes and potential impacts discussed. OBSERVATIONS In addition to the areas analyzed in Karl's work new zones with decreasing DTR were identified in several countries in the North Atlantic region (Frich, this volume), Ireland, Thailand, Bangladesh and Turkey (Jones, this volume), central India (Singh and Jones, this volume) and elsewhere (Horton, this volume). The analyzed area currently covers over 40% of the global land surface. Additional details were presented about the areas where the nighttime wanning was reported earlier (Plummer et al., this volume; Horton, this volume, iii Robinson et al., this volume; Smith, this volume; Razuvaev et al., this volume; Baker et al., this volume). Although most global climate models expect the strongest impact < c he CO2 rise in the high latitudes, no systematic change of minimum and maximum temperatures nor an overall warming has been observed in the Arctic over the last 50 years or so (Kahl et al., 1993; Ye et al., this volume). Some researchers noted that the decrease of the DTR is most pronounced in autumn (Horton, this volume; Karl et al., 1993; Kukla and Karl, 1993). Interesting is also the location of the areas where the DTR increased, possibly in part as a result of decreased cloudiness. Such zones are in the vicinity of Hudson Bay and Labrador where the temperature range increases most markedly in winter and spring (Horton, this volume) in parts of Europe (Brazdil et al., this volume; Horton, this volume; Jones, this volume), northeastern and southeastern India (Singh and Jones, this volume) and notably uver the west Pacific Islands (Salinger, this volume). The decrease of the daily temperature range is not always due to the rise of the night temperatures. For instance this is the case only over the northern and central section of the European part of the former USSR, whereas in the southern part the range decreases because of depressed daily maxima (Razuvaev et al., this volume).