Empirical Data on Contemporary Global Climate Changes (Temperature and Precipitation)

Abstract

Abstract New data are presented on the changes of mean global surface air temperature and annual precipitation over extratropical continents of the Northern Hemisphere. Global warming occurred during the last century with a mean trend of 0.5°C/100 years. It is shown that for the same period the annual precipitation over the land in the 35°–70°N zone increased by 6%. The observed variations of precipitation coincide with the results of general circulation modeling of doubled CO2 equilibrium climate change by sign but contradict by scale.