The early 20th century warming: Anomalies, causes, and consequences

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Climate Change
Gabriele C HegerlTim Cowan

Abstract

The most pronounced warming in the historical global climate record prior to the recent warming occurred over the first half of the 20th century and is known as the Early Twentieth Century Warming (ETCW). Understanding this period and the subsequent slowdown of warming is key to disentangling the relationship between decadal variability and the response to human influences in the present and future climate. This review discusses the observed changes during the ETCW and hypotheses for the underlying causes and mechanisms. Attribution studies estimate that about a half (40-54%; p > .8) of the global warming from 1901 to 1950 was forced by a combination of increasing greenhouse gases and natural forcing, offset to some extent by aerosols. Natural variability also made a large contribution, particularly to regional anomalies like the Arctic warming in the 1920s and 1930s. The ETCW period also encompassed exceptional events, several of which are touched upon: Indian monsoon failures during the turn of the century, the "Dust Bowl" droughts and extreme heat waves in North America in the 1930s, the World War II period drought in Australia between 1937 and 1945; and the European droughts and heat waves of the late 1940s and early 1950s....Continue Reading

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Citations

Apr 1, 2019·Archives of Microbiology·Roy D Sleator, Niall Smith
Nov 15, 2019·Ecology Letters·Zdeněk Faltýnek FricMartin Konvička
Aug 3, 2019·Nature Geoscience·UNKNOWN PAGES 2k ConsortiumLucien von Gunten
Oct 6, 2020·Reviews of Geophysics·S C SherwoodM D Zelinka
Jan 5, 2021·Annual Review of Marine Science·Elizabeth C Kent, John J Kennedy

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Software Mentioned

20CM
HadCRUT
ERA
HadSST3
20CR
Climate Explorer
HadCRUT4
ERA20CM

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