Work

Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008

Year: 2011

Type: article

Abstract: Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008. We find that this hiatus in warming coincides with a period of little increase in the sum of anthropogenic and natural forcings. Declining solar insolation as part of a normal eleven-year cycle, and a cyclical change from an El Nino to a La Nina dominate our measure of anthropogenic effects because rapid growth in short-lived sulfur emissions partially offsets rising greenhouse gas concentrations. As such, we find that recent global temperature records are consistent with the existing understanding of the relationship among global surface temperature, internal variability, and radiative forcing, which includes anthropogenic factors with well known warming and cooling effects.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1102467108

Authors: Robert K. Kaufmann, Heikki Kauppi, Michael L. Mann, James H. Stock

Institutions: Boston University, University of Turku, Harvard University

Language: English

Topic: Climate variability and models

Subfield: Global and Planetary Change

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Climate action

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Science Foundation