An approximately decadal periodicity in surface air temperature is discernable in global observations from A.D. 1855 to 1900 and since A.D. 1945, but with a periodicity of only about 6 years during the intervening period. Changes in solar irradiance related to the sunspot cycle have been proposed to account for the former, but cannot account for the latter. To explain both by a single mechanism...

changes in sea ice thickness and the relative amounts of open water on surface air temperatures through the year. Figure 2 shows that the impact on the surface air temperatures is rather small during the summer; however, during the winter, when there is a large difference between the surface temperature of ocean water and of sea ice, the impact of small changes in the area of open ocean on surf...

A set of geophysical error sources for the microwave remote sensing of ocean surface salinity have been examined. The error sources include the sea surface temperature, sea surface roughness, atmospheric gases, ionospheric Faraday rotation, and solar and galactic emission sources. I t is shown that the brightness temperature errors of a few Kelvin can be expected for most of these error sources...

The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world. Observational evidence has been obtained of unexpected short-term water heating in the 2-m uppermost layer of this hypersaline lake, following a sharp drop in solar radiation under weak winds. This was carried out using Dead Sea buoy measurements. Passing frontal cloudiness mixed 30 with significant dust pollution over the Judean...