Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Yet another study confirms global warming is human-caused
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/06/yet-another-study-confirms-global-warming-is-human-caused/One of the ways in which climate scientists evaluate the role of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions in the recent warming of Earths climate is to run climate models both with and without human activities. By comparing the results of each to the observed temperature trend, these fingerprinting studies can show how much of the temperature record can be explained by natural factors (such as solar activity and volcanic eruptions). This has commonly been applied to trends in atmospheric temperatures (as shown in the 2007 IPCC report), where its clear that the observed warming wouldnt have happened without rising greenhouse gases.
Increasingly reliable records of ocean temperatures have now allowed some of these same researchers to confidently apply the technique to Earths seas. This is important because some 90 percent of all the energy trapped by human greenhouse emissions has ended up in the ocean, not the atmosphere. The trend with ocean heat content is clearits rising. The question is whether that rise could be caused by natural variations.
Researchers averaged the results from a number of climate models, and compared that to global temperature records for the upper 700 meters of the ocean from 1960 to 1999. The temperature record is less complete for the deep ocean, and its massive volume and separation from the surface subdues its response to climatic changes. In addition to the global average, they also analyzed each of the major ocean basins (North and South Atlantic, North and South Pacific, North and South Indian) separately.
They found that the anthropogenic fingerprint was apparent in the observed temperature record at the 99 percent confidence level. That means the observed warming is beyond the variability seen in model simulations where greenhouse gases are kept constant, but is exactly what the models predict for a world in which humans change the composition of the atmosphere.
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
3 replies, 1187 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (10)
ReplyReply to this post
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Yet another study confirms global warming is human-caused (Original Post)
swag
Jun 2012
OP
PDJane
(10,103 posts)1. Of course it is.
And we are destroying ourselves and our environment.
Uncle Joe
(58,297 posts)2. Kicked and recommended.
Thanks for the thread, swag.
Prophet 451
(9,796 posts)3. Not that it's going to matter
The facts have been politicised now. So long as the GOP keeps repeating that man-made global warming isn't real and the media keeps pretending that both sides are equal, their sheep will continue to believe it.