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Nature 453, 601-602 (29 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/453601a; Published online 28 May 2008

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Climate change: Hot questions of temperature bias

Chris E. Forest1 & Richard W. Reynolds2

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An unseen measurement bias has been identified in global records of sea surface temperature. The discrepancy will need correction, but will not affect conclusions about an overall warming trend.

On page 646 of this issue, Thompson et al.1 take a fresh look at the global temperature record throughout the twentieth century, which is both a central test of climate models and prima facie evidence for man-made global warming. After filtering out large-scale natural effects, they uncover a large discontinuity in the data in 1945, and trace its source to a change in the instrumental bias in the sea surface temperature (SST) record that occurred around that time, and has not previously been adjusted.

  1. Chris E. Forest is in the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
    Email: ceforest@mit.edu
  2. Richard W. Reynolds is in the US National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 151 Patton Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina 28801, USA.
    Email: richard.w.reynolds@noaa.gov

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