Climate Variability And Extremes During The Past 100 Years (advances In Global Change Research)

Climate Variability and Extremes during the Past 100 Years ADVANCES IN GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH VOLUME 33 Editor-in-Chief Martin Beniston, University of Geneva, Switzerland Editorial Advisory Board B. Allen-Diaz, Department ESPM-Ecosystem Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A. R.S. Bradley, Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, U.S.A. W. Cramer, Department of Global Change and Natural Systems, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany. H.F. Diaz, Climate Diagnostics Center, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, NOAA, Boulder, CO, U.S.A. S. Erkman, Institute for communication and Analysis of Science and Technology–ICAST, Geneva, Switzerland R. Garcia Herrera, Faculated de Fisicas, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain M. Lal, Center for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India. U. Luterbacher, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. I. Noble, CRC for Greenhouse Accounting and Research School of Biological Science, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. L. Tessier, Institut Mediterranéen d’Ecologie et Paléoécologie, Marseille, France. F. Toth, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Laxenburg, Austria. M.M. Verstraete, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Ec Joint Research Centre, Ispra (VA), Italy. The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume. Climate Variability and Extremes during the Past 100 Years Stefan Brönnimann • Jürg Luterbacher Tracy Ewen • Henry F. Diaz Richard S. Stolarski • Urs Neu Editors Max und Elsa Beer-Brawand-Fonds Stefan Brönnimann Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science ETH Zürich, Switzerland Jürg Luterbacher NCCR Climate and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research and Institute of Geography University of Bern, Switzerland Tracy Ewen Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science ETH Zürich, Switzerland Henry F. Diaz NOAA-ESRL, Boulder CO USA Richard S. Stolarski NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD, USA Urs Neu ProClim, Bern Switzerland Cover: Deadvlei pan in the Namib Desert, Namibia (Photo: Tracy Ewen), flooding in Bern, Switzerland, 15 May 1999 (Photo: Stefan Brönnimann), satellite image of sea ice cover in the Barents and Kara sea region, 12 June 2001 (Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA Visible Earth v1 ID 8126). ISBN 978-1-4020-6765-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-6766-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2007940817 © 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com Preface Large progress has been made in the past few years towards quantifying and understanding climate variability during past centuries. At the same time, present-day climate has been studied using state-of-the-art data sets and tools with respect to the physical and chemical mechanisms governing climate variability. Both the understanding of the past and the knowledge of the processes are important for assessing and attributing the anthropogenic effect on present and future climate. The most important time period in this context is the past approximately 100 years, which comprises large natural variations and extremes (such as long droughts) as well as anthropogenic influences, most pronounced in the past few