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An Overview of Climatic Variability and its Causal Mechanisms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

J. Murray Mitchell Jr.
J. Murray Mitchell Jr.*
Affiliation:
Environmental Data Service, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 USA
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Abstract

A variance spectrum of climatic variability is presented that spans all time scales of variability from about one hour (10−4 years) to the age of the Earth (4 × 109 years). An interpretive overview of the spectrum is offered in which a distinction is made between sources of variability that arise through stochastic mechanisms internal to the climatic system (atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere) and those that arise through forcing of the system from the outside. All identifiable mechanisms, both internal and external, are briefly defined and clarified as to their essential nature. It is concluded that most features of the spectrum of climatic variability can be given tentatively reasonable interpretations, whereas some features (in particular the quasi-biennial oscillation and the neoglacial cycle of the Holocene) remain fundamentally unexplained. The overall spectrum suggests the existence of a modest degree of deterministic forms of climatic change, but sufficient nonsystematic variability to place significant constraints both on the extent to which climate can be predicted, and on the extent to which significant events in the paleoclimatic record can ever manage to be assigned specific causes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , December 1976 , pp. 481 - 493
Copyright
University of Washington

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