IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON MARINE AIR TEMPERATURE
Elizabeth Kent, David Berry 1 and Julian Hill2
1 National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
2 Meteorological Office
Executive Summary
Marine air temperature measurements made by Voluntary Observing Ships have been used in a new dataset of daily air temperatures and other marine meteorological variables currently under development at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. This dataset shows that the air temperature over the seas near the UK (7W:3E and 50N:60N) has risen over the period 1970 to 2004 at a similar rate to the Central England Temperature (CET, Parker et al., 1992). However, there are strong regional variations in the linear warming trend over UK territorial waters. Marine air temperatures have risen faster than CET in the Eastern English Channel and across the whole of the North Sea. The Scottish Continental Shelf and North-West Approaches have seen a slower rise than CET and the Irish Sea, South-West Approaches and the Western Channel have seen marine air temperature increasing at a comparable rate to CET. Marine air temperature spatial gradients are thus increasing in the Northern North Sea.
Due to a decline in the number of reports from Voluntary Observing Ships our confidence in the estimates of marine air temperature has decreased over the last decade, both in UK waters and globally.
Sea surface temperature linear trends within UK Coastal Waters are broadly similar to marine air temperature in both magnitude and spatial pattern.
Level of Confidence
High
Key sources of Information
Parker, D.E., T.P. Legg, and C.K. Folland, 1992: A new daily Central England Temperature Series, 1772-1991. Int. J. Clim., Vol 12, p317-342
Please acknowledge this document as: Kent, E., Berry, D. and Hill, J. (2006). Impacts of Climate Change on Marine Air Temperature in Marine Climate Change Impacts Annual Report Card 2006 (Eds. Buckley, P.J, Dye, S.R. and Baxter, J.M), Online Summary Reports, MCCIP, Lowestoft, www.mccip.org.uk
© Crown Copyright 2006