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.     

Optimal detection and attribution of climate change: sensitivity of results to climate model differences

Fingerprint techniques for the detection of anthropogenic climate change aim to distinguish the climate response to anthropogenic forcing from responses to other external influences and from internal climate variability. All these responses and the characteristics of internal variability are typically estimated from climate model data. We evaluate the sensitivity of detection and attribution results to the use of response and variability estimates from two different coupled ocean atmosphere general circulation models (HadCM2, developed at the Hadley Centre, and ECHAM3/LSG from the MPI für Meteorologie and Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum). The models differ in their response to greenhouse gas and direct sulfate aerosol forcing and also in the structure of their internal variability. This leads to differences in the estimated amplitude and the significance level of anthropogenic signals in observed 50-year summer (June, July, August) surface temperature trends. While the detection of anthropogenic influence on climate is robust to intermodel differences, our ability to discriminate between the greenhouse gas and the sulfate aerosol signals is not. An analysis of the recent warming, and the warming that occurred in the first half of the twentieth century, suggests that simulations forced with combined changes in natural (solar and volcanic) and anthropogenic (greenhouse gas and sulfate aerosol) forcings agree best with the observations.     

Are Natural Climate Forcings Able to Counteract the Projected Anthropogenic Global Warming?

A two-dimensional global climate model is used to assessthe climatic changes associated with the new IPCC SRES emissions scenarios and to determine which kind of changes in total solar irradiance and volcanic perturbations could mask the projected anthropogenic global warming associated to the SRES scenarios. Our results suggest that only extremely unlikely changes in total solar irradiance and/or volcanic eruptions would be able to overcome the simulated anthropogenic global warming over the century. Nevertheless, in the critical interval of the next two decades the externally-driven natural climate variability might possibly confuse the debate about temperature trends and impede detection of the anthropogenic climate change signal.     

Simulation of the influence of solar radiation variations on the global climate with an ocean-atmosphere general circulation model

 Two simulations with a global coupled ocean-atmosphere circulation model have been carried out to study the potential impact of solar variability on climate. The Hoyt and Schatten estimate of solar variability from 1700 to 1992 has been used to force the model. Results indicate that the near-surface temperature simulated by the model is dominated by the long periodic solar fluctuations (Gleissberg cycle), with global mean temperatures varying by about 0.5 K. Further results indicate that solar variability and an increase in greenhouse gases both induce to a first approximation a comparable pattern of surface temperature change, i.e., an increase of the land-sea contrast. However, the solar-induced warming pattern in annual means and summer is more centered over the subtropics, compared to a more uniform warming associated with the increase in greenhouse gases. The observed temperature rise over the most recent 30 and 100 years is larger than the trend in the solar forcing simulation during the same period, indicating a strong likelihood that, if the model forcing and response is realistic, other factors have contributed to the observed warming. Since the pattern of the recent observed warming agrees better with the greenhouse warming pattern than with the solar variability response, it is likely that one of these factors is the increase of the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration. Received: 14 October 1996 / Accepted: 9 May 1997     

Simple indices of global climate variability and change Part II: attribution of climate change during the twentieth century

Five simple indices of surface temperature are used to investigate the influence of anthropogenic and natural (solar irradiance and volcanic aerosol) forcing on observed climate change during the twentieth century. These indices are based on spatial fingerprints of climate change and include the global-mean surface temperature, the land-ocean temperature contrast, the magnitude of the annual cycle in surface temperature over land, the Northern Hemisphere meridional temperature gradient and the hemispheric temperature contrast. The indices contain information independent of variations in global-mean temperature for unforced climate variations and hence, considered collectively, they are more useful in an attribution study than global mean surface temperature alone. Observed linear trends over 1950–1999 in all the indices except the hemispheric temperature contrast are significantly larger than simulated changes due to internal variability or natural (solar and volcanic aerosol) forcings and are consistent with simulated changes due to anthropogenic (greenhouse gas and sulfate aerosol) forcing. The combined, relative influence of these different forcings on observed trends during the twentieth century is investigated using linear regression of the observed and simulated responses of the indices. It is found that anthropogenic forcing accounts for almost all of the observed changes in surface temperature during 1946–1995. We found that early twentieth century changes (1896–1945) in global mean temperature can be explained by a combination of anthropogenic and natural forcing, as well as internal climate variability. Estimates of scaling factors that weight the amplitude of model simulated signals to corresponding observed changes using a combined normalized index are similar to those calculated using more complex, optimal fingerprint techniques.     

气候系统模式FGOALS_gl模拟的20世纪气温变化

分析了中国科学院大气物理研究所大气科学和地球流体力学国家重点实验室(LASG/IAP)发展的快速耦合气候系统模式FGOALS_gl对近100年气温变化的模拟,讨论了20世纪气温变化的机理。结果表明,在自然因素和人为因素的共同强迫作用下,FGOALS_gl能够合理再现20世纪全球平均和纬向平均地表气温随时间的演变。利用太阳辐照度等自然强迫、温室气体和气溶胶等人为强迫因子来驱动耦合模式,能够模拟出过去100年全球平均气温的增温趋势和年代际变化。耦合模式可以较好地模拟出20世纪全球气温变化趋势的空间分布。对区域气温变化模拟效果的分析表明,除北大西洋外,FGOALS_gl对其他地区具有较高的模拟技巧,表明外强迫是造成多数地区气温变化的主要原因。FGOALS_gl的主要缺陷在于模拟的变暖强度偏弱,大气模式自身的偏差以及耦合模式对温室气体响应的敏感度偏低是造成上述缺陷的主要原因。总体而言,FGOALS_gl对20世纪气温变化的模拟效果较为理想,特别是在全球、半球和大陆尺度上,该模式对过去100年气温变化的模拟较为合理。     

Probable causes of late twentieth century tropospheric temperature trends

We assess the most probable causes of late twentieth century (1960–1994) tropospheric temperature changes. Optimal detection techniques are used to compare observed spatio-temporal patterns of near-surface and tropospheric temperature change with results from experiments performed with two different versions of the Hadley Centre climate model. We detect anthropogenic forcings, particularly well-mixed greenhouse-gases, with a less certain sulfate aerosol cooling influence. More limited evidence exists for a detectable volcanic influence. Our principal results do not depend upon the choice of model. Both models, but particularly HadCM3, appear to overestimate the simulated climate response to greenhouse gases (especially at the surface) and volcanoes. This result may arise, at least in part, due to errors in the forcings (especially sulfate) and technical details of our approach, which differs from previous studies. We use corrected and uncorrected versions of the radiosonde record to assess sensitivity of our detection results to observational uncertainties. We find that previous corrections applied to the radiosonde temperature record are likely to have been sub-optimal in only taking into account temporal consistency. However, the choice of corrected or uncorrected version has no systematic effect upon our main conclusions. We show that both models are potentially internally consistent explanations of observed tropospheric temperatures.     

全球增暖的另一可能原因初探

太阳是地球流体(大气和海洋等)运动的最终能量源,地球环境,尤其是气候的变化不能不与太阳活动有关.目前,普遍将全球增暖归结为温室气体含量增加所导致的温室效应的加剧,这无疑是有一定依据和有道理的.但从科学上来讲,人类活动所引起温室气体增加的影响,并非是唯一原因.基于已有的一些研究结果,从太阳活动的观点所进行的初步分析表明,太阳活动也可能是引起近世纪全球增暖的另一个重要原因.太阳活动的影响主要包括太阳辐射的直接影响和引发地磁场变化的间接影响两个方面,地球磁场的变化将可通过动力过程和热力过程而影响大气环流和气候的变化.     

Imprint of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation and Pacific decadal oscillation on southwestern US climate: past,present, and future

The surface air temperature increase in the southwestern United States was much larger during the last few decades than the increase in the global mean. While the global temperature increased by about 0.5 °C from 1975 to 2000, the southwestern US temperature increased by about 2 °C. If such an enhanced warming persisted for the next few decades, the southwestern US would suffer devastating consequences. To identify major drivers of southwestern climate change we perform a multiple-linear regression of the past 100 years of the southwestern US temperature and precipitation. We find that in the early twentieth century the warming was dominated by a positive phase of the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation (AMO) with minor contributions from increasing solar irradiance and concentration of greenhouse gases. The late twentieth century warming was about equally influenced by increasing concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and a positive phase of the AMO. The current southwestern US drought is associated with a near maximum AMO index occurring nearly simultaneously with a minimum in the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) index. A similar situation occurred in mid-1950s when precipitation reached its minimum within the instrumental records. If future atmospheric concentrations of GHGs increase according to the IPCC scenarios (Solomon et al. in Climate change 2007: working group I. The Physical Science Basis, Cambridge, 996 pp, 2007), climate models project a fast rate of southwestern warming accompanied by devastating droughts (Seager et al. in Science 316:1181–1184, 2007; Williams et al. in Nat Clim Chang, 2012). However, the current climate models have not been able to predict the behavior of the AMO and PDO indices. The regression model does support the climate models (CMIP3 and CMIP5 AOGCMs) projections of a much warmer and drier southwestern US only if the AMO changes its 1,000 years cyclic behavior and instead continues to rise close to its 1975–2000 rate. If the AMO continues its quasi-cyclic behavior the US SW temperature should remain stable and the precipitation should significantly increase during the next few decades.     

Numerical Simulation of Global Temperature Change during the 20th Century with the IAP／LASG GOALS Model

The IAP/LASG GOALS coupled model is used to simulate the climate change during the 20th century using historical greenhouse gases concentrations, the mass mixing ratio of sulfate aerosols simulated by a CTM model, and reconstruction of solar variability spanning the period 1900 to 1997. Four simulations, including a control simulation and three forcing simulations, are conducted. Comparison with the observational record for the period indicates that the three forcing experiments simulate reasonable temporal and spatial distributions of the temperature change. The global warming during the 20th century is caused mainly by increasing greenhouse gas concentration especially since the late 1980s; sulfate aerosols offset a portion of the global warming and the reduction of global temperature is up to about 0.11℃ over the century; additionally, the effect of solar variability is not negligible in the simulation of climate change over the 20th century.     

A probabilistic quantification of the anthropogenic component of twentieth century global warming

This paper examines in detail the statement in the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”. We use a quantitative probabilistic analysis to evaluate this IPCC statement, and discuss the value of the statement in the policy context. For forcing by greenhouse gases (GHGs) only, we show that there is a greater than 90 % probability that the expected warming over 1950–2005 is larger than the total amount (not just “most”) of the observed warming. This is because, following current best estimates, negative aerosol forcing has substantially offset the GHG-induced warming. We also consider the expected warming from all anthropogenic forcings using the same probabilistic framework. This requires a re-assessment of the range of possible values for aerosol forcing. We provide evidence that the IPCC estimate for the upper bound of indirect aerosol forcing is almost certainly too high. Our results show that the expected warming due to all human influences since 1950 (including aerosol effects) is very similar to the observed warming. Including the effects of natural external forcing factors has a relatively small impact on our 1950–2005 results, but improves the correspondence between model and observations over 1900–2005. Over the longer period, however, externally forced changes are insufficient to explain the early twentieth century warming. We suggest that changes in the formation rate of North Atlantic Deep Water may have been a significant contributing factor.     

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.     

A global perspective on African climate

We describe the global climate system context in which to interpret African environmental change to support planning and implementation of policymaking action at national, regional and continental scales, and to inform the debate between proponents of mitigation v. adaptation strategies in the face of climate change. We review recent advances and current challenges in African climate research and exploit our physical understanding of variability and trends to shape our outlook on future climate change. We classify the various mechanisms that have been proposed as relevant for understanding variations in African rainfall, emphasizing a “tropospheric stabilization” mechanism that is of importance on interannual time scales as well as for the future response to warming oceans. Two patterns stand out in our analysis of twentieth century rainfall variability: a drying of the monsoon regions, related to warming of the tropical oceans, and variability related to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The latest generation of climate models partly captures this recent continent-wide drying trend, attributing it to the combination of anthropogenic emissions of aerosols and greenhouse gases, the relative contribution of which is difficult to quantify with the existing model archive. The same climate models fail to reach a robust agreement regarding the twenty-first century outlook for African rainfall, in a future with increasing greenhouse gases and decreasing aerosol loadings. Such uncertainty underscores current limitations in our understanding of the global climate system that it is necessary to overcome if science is to support Africa in meeting its development goals.     

The Role Of Halocarbons In The Climate Change Of The Troposphere And Stratosphere

Releases of halocarbons into the atmosphere over the last 50 years are among the factors that have contributed to changes in the Earth’s climate since pre-industrial times. Their individual and collective potential to contribute directly to surface climate change is usually gauged through calculation of their radiative efficiency, radiative forcing, and/or Global Warming Potential (GWP). For those halocarbons that contain chlorine and bromine, indirect effects on temperature via ozone layer depletion represent another way in which these gases affect climate. Further, halocarbons can also affect the temperature in the stratosphere. In this paper, we use a narrow-band radiative transfer model together with a range of climate models to examine the role of these gases on atmospheric temperatures in the stratosphere and troposphere. We evaluate in detail the halocarbon contributions to temperature changes at the tropical tropopause, and find that they have contributed a significant warming of ~0.4 K over the last 50 years, dominating the effect of the other well-mixed greenhouse gases at these levels. The fact that observed tropical temperatures have not warmed strongly suggests that other mechanisms may be countering this effect. In a climate model this warming of the tropopause layer is found to lead to a 6% smaller climate sensitivity for halocarbons on a globally averaged basis, compared to that for carbon dioxide changes. Using recent observations together with scenarios we also assess their past and predicted future direct and indirect roles on the evolution of surface temperature. We find that the indirect effect of stratospheric ozone depletion could have offset up to approximately half of the predicted past increases in surface temperature that would otherwise have occurred as a result of the direct effect of halocarbons. However, as ozone will likely recover in the next few decades, a slightly faster rate of warming should be expected from the net effect of halocarbons, and we find that together halocarbons could bring forward next century’s expected warming by ~20 years if future emissions projections are realized. In both the troposphere and stratosphere CFC-12 contributes most to the past temperature changes and the emissions projection considered suggest that HFC-134a could contribute most of the warming over the coming century.     

Using a global climate model to evaluate the influences of water vapor, snow cover and atmospheric aerosol on warming in the Tibetan Plateau during the twenty-first century

We examine trends in climate variables and their interrelationships over the Tibetan Plateau using global climate model simulations to elucidate the mechanisms for the pattern of warming observed over the plateau during the latter half of the twentieth century and to investigate the warming trend during the twenty-first century under the SRES A1B scenario. Our analysis suggests a 4°C warming over the plateau between 1950 and 2100. The largest warming rates occur during winter and spring. For the 1961–2000 period, the simulated warming is similar to the observed trend over the plateau. Moreover, the largest warming occurs at the highest elevation sites between 1950 and 2100. We find that increases in (1) downward longwave radiation (DLR) influenced by increases in surface specific humidity (q), and (2) absorbed solar radiation (ASR) influenced by decreases in snow cover extent are, in part, the reason for a large warming trend over the plateau, particularly during winter and spring. Furthermore, elevation-based increases in DLR (influenced by q) and ASR (influenced by snow cover and atmospheric aerosols) appear to affect the elevation dependent warming trend simulated in the model.     

On Orderly Adaptation to Global Warming

Global warming during the last century has been a well-known fact. Despite arguments and uncertainties in explanations, most scientists agree that this century-scale warming trend is attributable to human activities. According to the recent assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change （IPCC, 2007） based on worldwide scientific results,     

The impact of natural and anthropogenic forcings on climate and hydrology since 1550

A climate simulation of an ocean/atmosphere general circulation model driven with natural forcings alone (constant “pre-industrial” land-cover and well-mixed greenhouse gases, changing orbital, solar and volcanic forcing) has been carried out from 1492 to 2000. Another simulation driven with natural and anthropogenic forcings (changes in greenhouse gases, ozone, the direct and first indirect effect of anthropogenic sulphate aerosol and land-cover) from 1750 to 2000 has also been carried out. These simulations suggest that since 1550, in the absence of anthropogenic forcings, climate would have warmed by about 0.1 K. Simulated response is not in equilibrium with the external forcings suggesting that both climate sensitivity and the rate at which the ocean takes up heat determine the magnitude of the response to forcings since 1550. In the simulation with natural forcings climate sensitivity is similar to other simulations of HadCM3 driven with CO₂ alone. Climate sensitivity increases when anthropogenic forcings are included. The natural forcing used in our experiment increases decadal–centennial time-scale and large spatial scale climate variability, relative to internal variability, as diagnosed from a control simulation. Mean conditions in the natural simulation are cooler than in our control simulation reflecting the reduction in forcing. However, over certain regions there is significant warming, relative to control, due to an increase in forest cover. Comparing the simulation driven by anthropogenic and natural forcings with the natural-only simulation suggests that anthropogenic forcings have had a significant impact on, particularly tropical, climate since the early nineteenth century. Thus the entire instrumental temperature record may be “contaminated” by anthropogenic influences. Both the hydrological cycle and cryosphere are also affected by anthropogenic forcings. Changes in tree-cover appear to be responsible for some of the local and hydrological changes as well as an increase in northern hemisphere spring snow cover.

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Consistency of observed near surface temperature trends with climate change projections over the Mediterranean region

We examine the possibility that anthropogenic forcing (Greenhouse gases and Sulfate aerosols, GS) is a plausible explanation for the observed near-surface temperature trends over the Mediterranean area. For this purpose, we compare annual and seasonal observed trends in near-surface temperature over the period from 1980 to 2009 with the response to GS forcing estimated from 23 models derived from CMIP3 database. We find that there is less than a 5% chance that natural (internal) variability is responsible for the observed annual and seasonal area-mean warming except in winter. Using additionally two pattern similarity statistics, pattern correlation and regression, we find that the large-scale component (spatial-mean) of the GS signal is detectable (at 2.5% level) in all seasons except in winter. In contrast, we fail to detect the small-scale component (spatial anomalies about the mean) of GS signal in observed trend patterns. Further, we find that the recent trends are significantly (at 2.5% level) consistent with all the 23 GS patterns, except in summer and spring, when 9 and 5 models respectively underestimate the observed warming. Thus, we conclude that GS forcing is a plausible explanation for the observed warming in the Mediterranean region. Consistency of observed trends with climate change projections indicates that present trends may be understood of what will come more so in the future, allowing for a better communication of the societal challenges to meet in the future.     

Contributions of solar and greenhouse gases forcing during the present warm period

Due to the dramatic increase in the global mean surface temperature (GMST) during the twentieth century, the climate science community has endeavored to determine which mechanisms are responsible for global warming. By analyzing a millennium simulation (the period of 1000–1990 ad) of a global climate model and global climate proxy network dataset, we estimate the contribution of solar and greenhouse gas forcings on the increase in GMST during the present warm period (1891–1990 ad). Linear regression analysis reveals that both solar and greenhouse gas forcing considerably explain the increase in global mean temperature during the present warm period, respectively, in the global climate model. Using the global climate proxy network dataset, on the other hand, statistical approach suggests that the contribution of greenhouse gas forcing is slightly larger than that of solar forcing to the increase in global mean temperature during the present warm period. Overall, our result indicates that the solar forcing as well as the anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing plays an important role to increase the global mean temperature during the present warm period.     

Detecting a Global Warming Signal in Hemispheric Temperature Series: AStructural Time Series Analysis

Non-stationary time series such as global andhemispheric temperatures, greenhouse gasconcentrations, solar irradiance, and anthropogenicsulfate aerosols, may contain stochastic trends (thesimplest stochastic trend is a random walk) which, dueto their unique patterns, can act as a signal of theinfluence of other variables on the series inquestion. Two or more series may share a commonstochastic trend, which indicates that either oneseries causes the behavior of the other or that thereis a common driving variable. Recent developments ineconometrics allow analysts to detect and classifysuch trends and analyze relationships among seriesthat contain stochastic trends. We apply someunivariate autoregression based tests to evaluate thepresence of stochastic trends in several time seriesfor temperature and radiative forcing. The temperatureand radiative forcing series are found to be ofdifferent orders of integration which would cast doubton the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis.However, these tests can suffer from size distortionswhen applied to noisy series such as hemispherictemperatures. We, therefore, use multivariatestructural time series techniques to decomposeNorthern and Southern Hemisphere temperatures intostochastic trends and autoregressive noise processes. These results show that there are two independentstochastic trends in the data. We investigate thepossible origins of these trends using a regressionmethod. Radiative forcing due to greenhouse gases andsolar irradiance can largely explain the common trend.The second trend, which represents the non-scalarnon-stationary differences between the hemispheres,reflects radiative forcing due to tropospheric sulfateaerosols. We find similar results when we use the sametechniques to analyze temperature data generated bythe Hadley Centre GCM SUL experiment.