Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Early twentieth-century warming linked to tropical Pacific wind strength

Abstract

Of the rise in global atmospheric temperature over the past century, nearly 30% occurred between 1910 and 1940 when anthropogenic forcings were relatively weak1. This early warming has been attributed to internal factors, such as natural climate variability in the Atlantic region, and external factors, such as solar variability and greenhouse gas emissions. However, the warming is too large to be explained by external factors alone and it precedes Atlantic warming by over a decade. For the late twentieth century, observations and climate model simulations suggest that Pacific trade winds can modulate global temperatures2,3,4,5,6,7, but instrumental data are scarce in the early twentieth century. Here we present a westerly wind reconstruction (1894–1982) from seasonally resolved measurements of Mn/Ca ratios in a western Pacific coral that tracks interannual to multidecadal Pacific climate variability. We then reconstruct central Pacific temperatures using Sr/Ca ratios in a coral from Jarvis Island, and find that weak trade winds and warm temperatures coincide with rapid global warming from 1910 to 1940. In contrast, winds are stronger and temperatures cooler between 1940 and 1970, when global temperature rise slowed down. We suggest that variations in Pacific wind strength at decadal timescales significantly influence the rate of surface air temperature change.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Comparison of global temperature with external forcings over the twentieth century.
Figure 2: Comparison of coral Mn/Ca with indicators of Pacific climate over the twentieth century.
Figure 3: Comparison of the rate of global warming with internal variability over the twentieth century.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Myhre, G. D. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) Ch. 8 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Trenberth, K. E. & Fasullo, J. T. An apparent hiatus in global warming? Earth’s Future 1, 19–32 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Meehl, G. A., Arblaster, J. M., Fasullo, J. T., Hu, A. & Trenberth, K. E. Model-based evidence of deep ocean heat uptake during surface temperature hiatus periods. Nature Clim. Change 1, 360–364 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. England, M. H. et al. Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus. Nature Clim. Change 4, 222–227 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. L’Heureux, M. L., Lee, S. & Lyon, B. Recent multidecadal strengthening of the Walker circulation across the tropical Pacific. Nature Clim. Change 3, 571–576 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Meehl, G. A., Hu, A., Arblaster, J. M., Fasullo, J. & Trenberth, K. E. Externally forced and internally generated decadal climate variability associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation. J. Clim. 26, 7298–7310 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Kosaka, Y. & Xie, S. P. Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling. Nature 501, 403–407 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Chen, X. & Tung, K. K. Varying planetary heat sink led to global-warming slowdown and acceleration. Science 345, 897–903 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Hansen, J., Ruedy, R., Sato, M. & Lo, K. Global surface temperature change. Rev. Geophys. 48, RG4004 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bindoff, N. L. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) Ch. 10 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Mitchell, J. F. B. et al. in Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis (eds Houghton, J. T. et al.) Ch. 12 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Hegerl, G. C. et al. in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. D. et al.) 663–745 (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Schlesinger, M. E. & Ramankutty, N. An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65–70 years. Nature 367, 723–726 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Wu, R. & Xie, S. P. On equatorial Pacific surface wind changes around 1977: NCEP-NCAR reanalysis versus COADS observations. J. Clim. 16, 167–173 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Shen, G. T., Linn, L. J., Campbell, T. M., Cole, J. E. & Fairbanks, R. G. A chemical indicator of trade wind reversal in corals from the western tropical Pacific. J. Geophys. Res. 97, 12698–12697 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Shen, G. T. & Boyle, E. A. Determination of lead, cadmium and other trace metals in annually-banded corals. Chem. Geol. 67, 47–62 (1988).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Shen, G. T. et al. Paleochemistry of manganese in corals from the Galapagos Islands. Coral Reefs 10, 91–100 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Inoue, M. et al. Evaluation of Mn and Fe in coral skeletons (Porites spp.) as proxies for sediment loading and reconstruction of 50 yrs of land use on Ishigaki Island, Japan. Coral Reefs 33, 363–373 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Yu, L., Weller, R. A. & Liu, W. T. Case analysis of a role of ENSO in regulating the generation of westerly wind bursts in the western equatorial Pacific. J. Geophys. Res. 108, 2002JC001498 (2003).

    Google Scholar 

  20. Vecchi, G. A. & Harrison, D. E. Tropical Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies, El Niño, and equatorial westerly wind events. J. Clim. 13, 1814–1830 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Compo, G. P. et al. The twentieth century reanalysis project. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 137, 1–28 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Cole, J. E., Fairbanks, R. G. & Shen, G. T. Recent variability in the Southern Oscillation: Isotopic results from a Tarawa Atoll coral. Science 260, 1790–1793 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Smith, T. M., Reynolds, R. W., Peterson, T. C. & Lawrimore, J. Improvements to NOAA’s historical merged land–ocean surface temperature analysis (1880–2006). J. Clim. 21, 2283–2296 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Fedorov, A. V. The response of the coupled tropical ocean-atmosphere to westerly wind bursts. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 128, 1–23 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Harrison, D. E. & Chiodi, A. M. Pre- and post-1997/98 westerly wind events and equatorial Pacific cold tongue warming. J. Clim. 22, 568–581 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Quinn, W. H., Neal, V. T. & De Mayolo, S. E. A. El Niño occurrences over the past four and a half centuries. J. Geophys. Res. 92, 14449–1446 (1987).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. NOAA’s Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) (NOAA Climate Prediction Center); http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/oni.ascii.txt

  28. Parker, D. E. et al. Decadal to interdecadal climate variability and predictability and the background of climate change. J. Geophys. Res. 112, D18115 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Schrag, D. P. Rapid analysis of high-precision Sr/Ca ratios in corals and other marine carbonates. Paleoceanography 14, 97–102 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Hartten, L. M. Synoptic settings of westerly wind bursts. J. Geophys. Res. 101, 16997–17019 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank M. Price, S. Hlohowskyj, S. Lemieux, C. Hollenbeck and S. Sanchez for support in producing Mn/Ca and Sr/Ca data sets, and S. Worley and J. Comeaux for aid in obtaining weather station data. We are grateful for discussions with J. Overpeck, J. L. Russell, W. Beck, P. DiNezio and C. Deser. This research was supported by the NOAA Climate Program Office (awards NA16RC0082 and NA08OAR4310682), the US NSF (awards OCE-9158496 and EaSM2-1243125), The University of Arizona Department of Geosciences, the Philanthropic Education Organization, UK NERC (Grant NER/GR3/12021), and the Regional and Global Climate Modeling Program of the US-DOE Office of Biological & Environmental Research Cooperative Agreement (DE-FC02-97ER62402).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

This study was initially conceived by G.T.S. and J.E.C., and Tarawa Mn/Ca time series data were generated by G.T.S. D.M.T. compiled and analysed Mn/Ca calibration data, and performed quantitative and comparative data analyses. A.W.T. conceived the Jarvis study, with D.M.T., J.E.C. and A.W.T. contributing to sampling, Sr/Ca analysis and interpretation. D.M.T., G.A.M. and J.E.C. led the comparisons of instrumental and palaeodata. D.M.T. and J.E.C. wrote the manuscript, and all authors contributed to discussion, interpretation and editing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Diane M. Thompson.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 4343 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Thompson, D., Cole, J., Shen, G. et al. Early twentieth-century warming linked to tropical Pacific wind strength. Nature Geosci 8, 117–121 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2321

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2321

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing