气候检测与归因的格兰杰检验法

 为揭示气候变化并探索其可能原因,引入了格兰杰因果检验法。在叙述其基本原理的基础上,对影响中国气温变化的若干因子进行了检验。论证了通过检验的因子与中国气温变化的可能物理联系,着重说明了二氧化碳增加对中国气温变化的影响,解释了我国增温滞后于全球气温变化的原因。由此证实格兰杰因果检验法是气候变化检测与归因的一种有用的新方法。通过计算和分析,证实了格兰杰检验法的可用性。     

气候检测与归因的格兰杰检验法

为揭示气候变化并探索其可能原因,引入了格兰杰因果检验法。在叙述其基本原理的基础上,对影响中国气温变化的若干因子进行了检验。论证了通过检验的因子与中国气温变化的可能物理联系,着重说明了二氧化碳增加对中国气温变化的影响,解释了我国增温滞后于全球气温变化的原因。由此证实格兰杰因果检验法是气候变化检测与归因的一种有用的新方法。通过计算和分析,证实了格兰杰检验法的可用性。     

A Review of Climate Change Attribution Studies

This paper reviews recent progress in climate change attribution studies. The focus is on the attribution of observed long-term changes in surface temperature, precipitation, circulation, and extremes, as well as that of specific extreme weather and climate events. Based on new methods and better models and observations, the latest studies further verify the conclusions on climate change attribution in the IPCC AR5, and enrich the evidence for anthropogenic influences on weather and climate variables and extremes. The uncertainty of global temperature change attributable to anthropogenic forcings lies in the considerable uncertainty of estimated total radiative forcing due to aerosols, while the uncertainty of precipitation change attribution arises from the limitations of observation and model simulations along with influences from large internal variability. In terms of extreme weather and climate events, it is clear that attribution studies have provided important new insights into the changes in the intensity or frequency of some of these events caused by anthropogenic climate change. The framing of the research question, the methods selected, and the model and statistical methods used all have influences on the results and conclusions drawn in an event attribution study. Overall, attribution studies in China remain inadequate because of limited research focus and the complexity of the monsoon climate in East Asia. Attribution research in China has focused mainly on changes or events related to temperature, such as the attribution of changes in mean and extreme temperature and individual heat wave events. Some progress has also been made regarding the pattern of changes in precipitation and individual extreme rainfall events in China. Nonetheless, gaps remain with respect to the attribution of changes in extreme precipitation, circulation, and drought, as well as to the event attribution such as those related to drought and tropical cyclones. It can be expected that, with the continual development of climate models, ongoing improvements to data, and the introduction of new methods in the future, climate change attribution research will develop accordingly. Additionally, further improvement in climate change attribution will facilitate the development of operational attribution systems for extreme events, as well as attribution studies of climate change impacts.     

Detecting human influence on climate using neural networks based Granger causality

In this note we observe that a problem of linear approach to Granger causality testing between CO₂ and global temperature is that such tests can have low power. The probability to reject the null hypothesis of non-causality when it is false is low. Regarding non-linear Granger causality, based on multi-layer feed-forward neural network, the analysis provides evidence of significant unidirectional Granger causality from CO₂ to global temperature.     

气候变化科学方面的几个最新认知

IPCC第六次评估报告（AR6）第一工作组报告主要从以下几个方面的进展提升了我们对气候系统变化、气候变化原因以及预估未来气候系统变化等方面的认知,对过去气候变化及其与人类活动的关系有了更加清晰、可靠的认识。综合多重证据评估指出,全球气候正经历着前所未有的变化;包括极端事件在内的归因进展已把人类活动对气候系统影响的认识从大气圈扩展到水圈、冰冻圈和生物圈,进一步强化了人类活动影响全球和区域气候的认识;有关区域气候变化信息的内容更加丰富,与各行业和敏感地区的气候变化影响联系更加紧密,使这些信息能更好地为气候变化风险评估和气候变化区域适应提供支持;气候模式和约束预估方法的发展以及对气候敏感度认识的深化,减少了未来不同排放情景下全球地表温度（Global Surface Temperature,GST)、海平面上升和海洋热含量的变化预估的不确定性。这份最新报告对我国提升气候变化研究水平和防灾减灾应对能力具有十分重要的指导意义。     

Testing for linear Granger causality from?natural/anthropogenic forcings to global temperature anomalies

In this paper, we analyze the Granger causality from natural or anthropogenic forcings to global temperature anomalies. The lag-augmented Wald test is performed, and its robustness is also evaluated considering bootstrap method. The results show there is no-evidence of Granger causality from natural forcings to global temperature. On the contrary, a detectable Granger causality is found from anthropogenic forcings to global temperature confirming that greenhouse gases have an important role on recent global warming.     

北京气候变暖与主要极端气温指数的归因分析

在对资料进行均一化处理的基础上,分析了北京1960—2008 年气候变暖及主要极端气温指数的统计特征,并应用格兰杰检验法对其进行归因分析。结果表明:(1) 近49 a 来北京年平均气温增速约为0.39 ℃/(10 a),气候增暖具有明显的非对称性。(2) 霜冻指数和气温年较差呈下降趋势,降幅为3.9 d/(10 a)和0.8 ℃/(10 a)。生长季指数、暖夜指数及热浪指数则呈上升趋势,增幅平均达3.0 d/(10 a)、0.75%/(10 a)和1.5 d/(10 a)。(3) 北京年平均气温是霜冻指数、生长季指数及暖夜指数发生变化的格兰杰原因。虽然年平均气温与热浪指数在不同滞后期均具强相关性,但是检验表明它们之间并无显著的因果关系,很可能是由于某种原因导致的一种统计上的伪相关现象。      

20世纪中国气候变暖的归因分析

Progress in the attribution of climate warming in China for the 20th century is summarized. Three sets of climate model experiments including both coupled and uncoupled runs have been used in the attribution analyses. Comparison of climate model results with the observations proves that in the 20th century, especially in the recent half century, climate warming in China is closely related to the increasing of the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, while sulfate aerosol should also have contributions. When both external forcing and natural forcing agents are prescribed, coupled climate models have better results in producing the observed variation of temperature in China. The role of oceanic forcing is also emphasized in the attribution analyses. The observed climate warming of China in the 1920s could not be reproduced in any set of climate model simulations.     

Anthropogenic and natural causes of climate change

We test for causality between radiative forcing and temperature using multivariate time series models and Granger causality tests that are robust to the non-stationary (trending) nature of global climate data. We find that both natural and anthropogenic forcings cause temperature change and also that temperature causes greenhouse gas concentration changes. Although the effects of greenhouse gases and volcanic forcing are robust across model specifications, we cannot detect any effect of black carbon on temperature, the effect of changes in solar irradiance is weak, and the effect of anthropogenic sulfate aerosols may be only around half that usually attributed to them.     

Multi-fingerprint detection and attribution analysis of greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol and solar forced climate change

 A multi-fingerprint analysis is applied to the detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change. While a single fingerprint is optimal for the detection of climate change, further tests of the statistical consistency of the detected climate change signal with model predictions for different candidate forcing mechanisms require the simultaneous application of several fingerprints. Model-predicted climate change signals are derived from three anthropogenic global warming simulations for the period 1880 to 2049 and two simulations forced by estimated changes in solar radiation from 1700 to 1992. In the first global warming simulation, the forcing is by greenhouse gas only, while in the remaining two simulations the direct influence of sulfate aerosols is also included. From the climate change signals of the greenhouse gas only and the average of the two greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol simulations, two optimized fingerprint patterns are derived by weighting the model-predicted climate change patterns towards low-noise directions. The optimized fingerprint patterns are then applied as a filter to the observed near-surface temperature trend patterns, yielding several detection variables. The space-time structure of natural climate variability needed to determine the optimal fingerprint pattern and the resultant signal-to-noise ratio of the detection variable is estimated from several multi-century control simulations with different CGCMs and from instrumental data over the last 136 y. Applying the combined greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol fingerprint in the same way as the greenhouse gas only fingerprint in a previous work, the recent 30-y trends (1966–1995) of annual mean near surface temperature are again found to represent a significant climate change at the 97.5% confidence level. However, using both the greenhouse gas and the combined forcing fingerprints in a two-pattern analysis, a substantially better agreement between observations and the climate model prediction is found for the combined forcing simulation. Anticipating that the influence of the aerosol forcing is strongest for longer term temperature trends in summer, application of the detection and attribution test to the latest observed 50-y trend pattern of summer temperature yielded statistical consistency with the greenhouse gas-plus-aerosol simulation with respect to both the pattern and amplitude of the signal. In contrast, the observations are inconsistent with the greenhouse-gas only climate change signal at a 95% confidence level for all estimates of climate variability. The observed trend 1943–1992 is furthermore inconsistent with a hypothesized solar radiation change alone at an estimated 90% confidence level. Thus, in contrast to the single pattern analysis, the two pattern analysis is able to discriminate between different forcing hypotheses in the observed climate change signal. The results are subject to uncertainties associated with the forcing history, which is poorly known for the solar and aerosol forcing, the possible omission of other important forcings, and inevitable model errors in the computation of the response to the forcing. Further uncertainties in the estimated significance levels arise from the use of model internal variability simulations and relatively short instrumental observations (after subtraction of an estimated greenhouse gas signal) to estimate the natural climate variability. The resulting confidence limits accordingly vary for different estimates using different variability data. Despite these uncertainties, however, we consider our results sufficiently robust to have some confidence in our finding that the observed climate change is consistent with a combined greenhouse gas and aerosol forcing, but inconsistent with greenhouse gas or solar forcing alone. Received: 28 April 1996 / Accepted: 27 January 1997     

Considering attitudinal uncertainty in the climate change skepticism continuum

In this paper we present an empirically driven language to discuss climate change skepticism. We conceptualize skeptic/skepticism as an umbrella term that includes those who actively reject climate science and those who are uncertain about climate change. We propose four categories for better empirical analysis of climate skepticism: epistemic deniers, epistemic doubters (borrowing from Capstick and Pidgeon 2014), attribution deniers, and attribution doubters (borrowing from Rahmstorf 2004). Using a unique dataset of surveys (n = 1000) and interviews (n = 33) with residents of the U.S. Pacific Northwest who are skeptical about climate change, we compare those four groups across several predictors and demographic variables (age, race, gender, political ideology, religiosity, income, education, and level of trust in science) and outcome variables (environmental concern, policy support, and conspiracy ideation (adherence to the belief that climate change is a “hoax”). We demonstrate the importance of considering attitudinal uncertainty in the analysis of climate skepticism by providing evidence for the presence of a continuum of thought wherein epistemic deniers and attribution doubters make up the two ends of a continuum with more complicated distinctions between epistemic doubters and attribution deniers.     

全球变暖中的科学问题

2013年各国政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）第一工作组发布了第五次气候变化科学评估报告,以大量的观测分析和气候模式模拟证据,继续强调由于人类排放增加,全球正在变暖,未来将继续变暖的观点。本文综述研究全球变暖的几个深层次的科学问题,即多套全球气温观测资料的差异、不同标准气候态时段的作用、20世纪全球变暖的检测和归因及未来全球气温变化的走向,以此提出需进一步研究的科学问题。结果表明;需要进一步提高观测资料的质量;注意不同标准气候态时段对应的数值的不同;应进一步改善气候模式模拟年代际变率的能力及研究近15 a全球变暖减缓和停滞的原因,从而改善气候模式的模拟效果;造成预估未来全球气候变化的不确定性主要来自气候模式的差异、未来排放情景的差异及气候系统内部变率影响和自然外强迫的作用。     

IPCC AR6报告解读：极端天气气候事件变化

与IPCC第五次评估报告（AR5）相比,在第六次评估报告（AR6）评估中,观测的极端天气气候事件变化证据,特别是归因于人为影响的证据加强。人类活动造成的气候变化已影响到全球每个区域的许多极端天气气候事件。随着未来全球变暖进一步加剧,预估极端热事件、强降水、农业生态干旱的强度和频次以及强台风（飓风）比例等将增加,越罕见的极端天气气候事件,其发生频率的增长百分比越大。这些结论再次凸显了应对气候变化和极端天气气候事件的必要性和紧迫性。     

On the use of Granger causality to investigate the human influence on climate

Summary A paper recently published in “Nature” finds that there is sufficient evidence to identify the effects of human activity on global temperature. The study is based on northern and southern hemispheres’ time series temperature from 1865 to 1994 and the econometric technique applied is Granger causality analysis. In this note, we make some critical remarks on the conclusions of this study which seem to be rather inconsistent from a methodological point of view. It is shown that a more accurate application of Granger causality analysis to this problem may not allow the same strong and unambiguous conclusions. Received December 22, 2000/Revised April 23, 2001     

Attribution matters: Revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change mitigation responses

The literature suggests that extreme weather experiences have potential to increase climate change engagement by influencing the way people perceive the proximity and implications of climate change. Yet, limited attention has been directed at investigating how individual differences in the subjective interpretation of extreme weather events as indications of climate change moderate the link between extreme weather experiences and climate change attitudes. This article contends that subjective attribution of extreme weather events to climate change is a necessary condition for extreme weather experiences to be translated into climate change mitigation responses, and that subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change is influenced by the psychological and social contexts in which individuals appraise their experiences with extreme weather. Using survey data gathered in the aftermath of severe flooding across the UK in winter 2013/2014, personal experience of this flooding event is shown to only directly predict perceived threat from climate change, and indirectly predict climate change mitigation responses, among individuals who subjectively attributed the floods to climate change. Additionally, subjective attribution of the floods to climate change is significantly predicted by pre-existing climate change belief, political affiliation and perceived normative cues. Attempts to harness extreme weather experiences as a route to engaging the public must be attentive to the heterogeneity of opinion on the attributability of extreme weather events to climate change.     

从哥本哈根气候变化大会看气候变化谈判的焦点问题及IPCC第五次评估报告的可能作用

从哥本哈根气候变化大会的谈判焦点可以预期,后续国际气候变化谈判的重点将是谈判的基础案文、发达国家在《京都议定书》第二承诺期进一步的量化减排承诺以及长期目标的表述等问题。IPCC第五次评估报告将对以往报告已阐述的科学问题和基本结论加以巩固并提供更有说服力的证据和论据,更加侧重区域问题,增加适应和减缓经济学成本、气候变化与可持续发展等内容的分析。关于气候变化检测和归因、气候变化影响和关键脆弱性、大气温室气体浓度稳定水平、适应的选择及其成本效益、减缓措施的选择和社会经济成本、责任分担机制及公平性等问题的评估结论,将对谈判进程的推进发挥重要作用。     

Attribution of Maize Yield Increase in China to Climate Change and Technological Advancement Between 1980 and 2010

Crop yields are affected by climate change and technological advancement. Objectively and quantitatively evaluating the attribution of crop yield change to climate change and technological advancement will ensure sustainable development of agriculture under climate change. In this study, daily climate variables obtained from 553 meteorological stations in China for the period 1961-2010, detailed observations of maize from 653 agricultural meteorological stations for the period 1981-2010, and results using an Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZ) model, are used to explore the attribution of maize (Zea mays L.) yield change to climate change and technological advancement. In the AEZ model, the climatic potential productivity is examined through three step-by-step levels: photosynthetic potential productivity, photosynthetic thermal potential productivity, and climatic potential productivity. The relative impacts of different climate variables on climatic potential productivity of maize from 1961 to 2010 in China are then evaluated. Combined with the observations of maize, the contributions of climate change and technological advancement to maize yield from 1981 to 2010 in China are separated. The results show that, from 1961 to 2010, climate change had a significant adverse impact on the climatic potential productivity of maize in China. Decreased radiation and increased temperature were the main factors leading to the decrease of climatic potential productivity. However, changes in precipitation had only a small effect. The maize yields of the 14 main planting provinces in China increased obviously over the past 30 years, which was opposite to the decreasing trends of climatic potential productivity. This suggests that technological advancement has offset the negative effects of climate change on maize yield. Technological advancement contributed to maize yield increases by 99.6%-141.6%, while climate change contribution was from-41.4% to 0.4%. In particular, the actual maize yields in Shandong, Henan, Jilin, and Inner Mongolia increased by 98.4, 90.4, 98.7, and 121.5 kg hm^-2 yr^-1 over the past 30 years, respectively. Correspondingly, the maize yields affected by technological advancement increased by 113.7, 97.9, 111.5, and 124.8 kg hm^-2 yr^-1, respectively. On the contrary, maize yields reduced markedly under climate change, with an average reduction of-9.0 kg hm^-2 yr^-1. Our findings highlight that agronomic technological advancement has contributed dominantly to maize yield increases in China in the past three decades.     

Riders under storms: Contributions of nomadic herders’ observations to analysing climate change in Mongolia

Predictions of climate change and its impacts are highly uncertain at regional and local levels. Downscaled models often operate with a too coarse scale and look at standard parameters that may be irrelevant to resource-dependent people. This article argues that a more robust analysis and prediction of climate change at local levels can be inferred from the integration of local people's observation of change with meteorological records and models.The example proposed here is the analysis of climate change in the desert-steppe region of Mongolia. While regional models and local analyses agree that Mongolia has become warmer, predictions either ignore or are contradictory about the changes in precipitations and sand storms. The Mongolian pastoral nomads on the other hand identify longer and more intense droughts and sand storms as the most important recent climatic changes, relevant to their livelihoods. In addition, they record detailed changes in the precipitations regime. Thus, they are unequivocal that rains have become patchy – ‘silk embroidery rains’ – (forcing pastoralists to move farther and more frequently), more intense (thus less effective due to runoff) and that summer rains are delayed (reducing the growing season).The observations of the pastoralists can only partly be investigated in light of meteorological records due to different parameters observed by the two systems. Nevertheless, additional evidence derived from the analysis of meteorological records resonates with the perceptions of the herders and adds elements for further investigation. This combined evidence suggests that due to a southern shift of the East Asian Monsoon, rains in southern Mongolia rely on re-circulated local moisture, leading to large-scale droughts and in turn more frequent sand storms.The analysis provided herein shows that combining the two knowledge systems (local people's observations and climatology) holds the potential to provide more reliant and relevant investigations of climate change and allow for better planned adaptations.     

全球气候变暖:浅谈从AR5到AR6的认知进展

自政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）第五次评估报告（AR5）发布以来,国际科学界在气候系统变化领域取得显著进展,有关气候变化的科学认识不断深入。IPCC第六次评估报告（AR6）第一工作组（WGI）报告对这些科学进展和最新认识作了综合评估。温度是全球变化最直接的指示器。本文从温度变化视角,对从AR5到AR6的科学进展进行了梳理和简要评述,主要聚焦观测的变化、归因以及未来预估三个方面。与AR5相比,AR6以更强有力的证据进一步确证了近百年全球气候变暖的客观事实,人类活动对气候变暖影响的信号更为清晰,未来变暖幅度取决于温室气体减排力度。     

Ranking the risk of CO2 emissions from seagrass soil carbon stocks under global change threats

Seagrass meadows are natural carbon storage hotspots at risk from global change threats, and their loss can result in the remineralization of soil carbon stocks and CO₂ emissions fueling climate change. Here we used expert elicitation and empirical evidence to assess the risk of CO₂ emissions from seagrass soils caused by multiple human-induced, biological and climate change threats. Judgments from 41 experts were synthesized into a seagrass CO₂ emission risk score based on vulnerability factors (i.e., spatial scale, frequency, magnitude, resistance and recovery) to seagrass soil organic carbon stocks. Experts perceived that climate change threats (e.g., gradual ocean warming and increased storminess) have the highest risk for CO₂ emissions at global spatial scales, while direct threats (i.e., dredging and building of a marina or jetty) have the largest CO₂ emission risks at local spatial scales. A review of existing peer-reviewed literature showed a scarcity of studies assessing CO₂ emissions following seagrass disturbance, but the limited empirical evidence partly confirmed the opinion of experts. The literature review indicated that direct and long-term disturbances have the greatest negative impact on soil carbon stocks per unit area, highlighting that immediate management actions after disturbances to recover the seagrass canopy can significantly reduce soil CO₂ emissions. We conclude that further empirical evidence assessing global change threats on the seagrass carbon sink capacity is required to aid broader uptake of seagrass into blue carbon policy frameworks. The preliminary findings from this study can be used to estimate the potential risk of CO₂ emissions from seagrass habitats under threat and guide nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation.