Researchers Create Means to Monitor Anthropogenic Global Warming in Real Time
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/researchers-create-means-monitor-anthropogenic-global-warming-real-time[font face=Serif][font size=5]Researchers Create Means to Monitor Anthropogenic Global Warming in Real Time[/font]
[font size=4]Method relies on dominance of Pacific Ocean as a global climate force[/font]
Jul 18, 2016
[font size=3]A research team including a Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego climate scientist simulated in a computer model, for the first time, the realistic evolution of global mean surface temperature since 1900.
In doing so, the researchers also created a new method by which researchers can measure and monitor the pace of anthropogenic global warming, finding that the contribution of human activities to warming in the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean can be distinguished from natural variability.
When Kosaka and Xie removed as a variable the natural warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean, the rise of global mean surface temperature became a more linear increase, one that began to accelerate more sharply in the 1960s. It had been natural Pacific decadal variations that temporarily slowed down or speeded up the warming trend, leading to the staircase pattern.
For example, global mean surface temperature has not changed much for 1998-2014, a time period known as the hiatus that has been tied to naturally occurring tropical Pacific cooling. Raw data show a warming of 0.9° C for the recent five-year period of 2010-2014 relative to 1900 while Kosaka and Xies calculation yields a much higher anthropogenic warming of 1.2° C after correcting for the natural variability effect.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2770