Prof. Philip D. Jones

CRU, University of East Anglia

3pm, 25 May, 2015

Room 101, Keyan Building

Abstract:

There are some who think that the global temperature record was only developed in the last 20-30 years, but the first person to develop such a record was Vladimir K？ppen(who developed the climate classifications we still use today) in the 1880s. Updates of the record and new analyses continued to be made up to the 1960s when we get the first estimates made with computers. That the early (pre-computer) analyses were excellent in quality is attested to by comparisons with modern calculations. The fact that these comparisons are so good is further proof that a limited number of series from well-spaced locations are all that are necessary to produce the global temperature record. The talk will discuss what’s important and what isn’t when it comes to working with both land-based stations and sea surface temperatures from oceanic regions. More recently global temperature averages have been produced from satellite records and estimates are now being made using improved Reanalyses. The talk will also discuss the history of the series and comparisons of the various approaches used that can be used today.