Petr Chylek, Nicholas Hengartner, Glen Lesins, James D. Klett, Ole Humlum, Marcia Wyatt, Manvendra K. Dubey

Geophysical Research Letters

Published date May 2, 2014

Isolating the anthropogenic component of Arctic warming

  • Applies structural model analysis to the annual mean Arctic surface air temperature from 1900 to 2012 to find the most effective set of predictors and to isolate the anthropogenic component of the recent Arctic warming by subtracting the effects of natural forcing and variability from the observed temperature
  • Finds that anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosols radiative forcing and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation internal mode dominate Arctic temperature variability
  • The structurally model analysis of observational data suggests that about half of the recent Arctic warming of 0.64 K/decade may have anthropogenic causes