Trends in UAH Zonal Mean Lower Troposphere Temperatures

Abstract

Full span OLS trends in zonal means for land and ocean of UAH satellite based measurements of lower troposphere temperatures 12/1978 to 4/2017 are tested for reliability and their information content in the context of OLS assumptions. Resampling and Gaussian simulations do not indicate instability of full span linear OLS trends in any of the sixteen zonal regions studied. However, comparison of split half trends and trends in a moving window show evidence of nonlinear behavior in nine of the sixteen zonal regions. It is proposed that in such cases trend profiles provide greater insight and more useful trend information than full span linear OLS trends.

Keywords: global warming, climate change, surface temperature, sea surface temperature, lower troposphere temperature, satellite temperature measurements, zonal mean temperatures, UAH satellite temperature dataset, temperature trends, uncertainty in temperature trends, linear OLS regression, assumptions of li