A growing body of research is showing that humans are likely causing more than 100% of global warming: without our influences on the climate, the planet would actually be cooling slightly.

 

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its fourth assessment report, internationally regarded as the most credible summary of climate science to date. It concluded that “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

 

A clear question remains: How much is “most”? 51%? 75%? 99%? At the time that the IPCC report was written, the answer was unclear. However, a new frontier of climate research has emerged since, and scientists are working hard to quantify the answer to this question.

 

I recently attended the 2011 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, a conference of over 20,000 scientists, many of whom study the climate system. This new area of research was a hot topic of discussion at AGU, and a phrase that came up many times was “more than 100%”.

 

That’s right, humans are probably causing more than 100% of observed global warming. That means that our influences are being offset by natural cooling factors. If we had never started burning fossil fuels, the world would be cooling slightly.

 

In the long term, oscillations of the Earth’s orbit show that, without human activity, we would be very slowly descending into a new ice age. There are other short-term cooling influences, though. Large volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo in 1991, have thrown dust into the upper atmosphere where it blocks a small amount of sunlight. The sun, particularly in the last few years, has been less intense than usual, due to the 11-year sunspot cycle. We have also experienced several strong La Niña events in the Pacific Ocean, which move heat out of the atmosphere and into the ocean.

 

However, all of these cooling influences pale in comparison to the strength of the human-caused warming influences. 

 

Most of the studies estimated that humans caused over 100% of the warming since 1950, and all six put the number over 98%. Additionally, most of the studies find natural influences to be in the direction of cooling, and all six show that number to be close to zero.

 

If you are interested in the methodologies and uncertainty ranges of these six studies, Skeptical Science goes into more detail, and also provides links to the original journal articles.

 

To summarize, the perception that humans are accelerating a natural process of warming is false. We have created this problem entirely on our own. Luckily, that means we have the power to stop the problem in its tracks. We are in control, and we choose what happens in the future.

 

(Source: nextgenjournal.com)

 

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