Climate Change Signal Analysis for Northeast Asian Surface Temperature

Climate change detection, attribution, and prediction were studied for the surface temperature in the Northeast Asian region using NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and three coupled-model simulations from ECHAM4/OPYC3, HadCM3, and CCCma GCMs (Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis general circulation model). The Bayesian fingerprint approach was used to perform the detection and attribution test for the anthropogenic climate change signal associated with changes in anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfate aerosol (SO42-) concentrations for the Northeast Asian temperature. It was shown that there was a weak anthropogenic climate change signal in the Northeast Asian temperature change. The relative contribution of CO2 and SOl- effects to total temperature change in Northeast Asia was quantified from ECHAM4/OPYC3 and CCCma GCM simulations using analysis of variance. For the observed temperature change for the period of 1959-1998, the CO2 effect contributed 10%-21% of the total variance and the direct cooling effect of SO42- played a less important role (0% 7%) than the CO2effect. The prediction of surface temperature change was estimated from the second CO2 SO24- scenario run of ECHAM4/OPYC3 which has the least error in the simulation of the present-day temperature field near the Korean Peninsula. The result shows that the area-mean surface temperature near the Korean Peninsula will increase by about 1.1° by the 2040s relative to the 1990s.