Gareth S. Jones, Peter A. Stott, Nikolaos Christidis

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

Published date February 12, 2013

Attribution of observed historical near‒surface temperature variations to anthropogenic and natural causes using CMIP5 simulations

  • Investigates the causes of changes in near‒surface temperatures from 1860 to 2010 using HadCRUT4 observational data and the CMIP5 ensemble of coupled models
  • Finds that human‒induced greenhouse gases dominate observed global warming since the mid‒20th century
  • Finds that individual models give a wide range of possible counteracting cooling from the direct and indirect effects of aerosols and other non‒greenhouse gas anthropogenic forcings
  • Estimates, using the multi-model mean, a range of possible contributions to the observed warming of approximately 0.6 K from greenhouse gases of between 0.6 and 1.2 K, balanced by a counteracting cooling from other anthropogenic forcings of between 0 and −0.5 K