The seasonal fingerprint of climate change

The fingerprint pattern against which the observations are evaluated is based on the evolving seasonal cycle in a large group of climate models subjected to anthropogenic and natural forcings. … In addition to providing an additional diagnostic of climate change, these results describe a metric—the amplitude of the seasonal cycle—that can be used to evaluate climate model behavior; the different models simulate this response to varying degrees.

By William J. Randel

Jul 18th, 2018

Human influence on the seasonal cycle of tropospheric temperature

Anthropogenic climate change has become clearly observable through many metrics. These include an increase in global annual temperatures, growing heat content of the oceans, and sea level rise owing to the melting of the polar ice sheets and glaciers. Now, Santer et al. report that a human-caused signal in the seasonal cycle of tropospheric temperature can also be measured (see the Perspective by Randel). They use satellite data and the anthropogenic “fingerprint” predicted by climate models to show the extent of the effects and discuss how these changes have been caused.

By Benjamin D. Santer, et al.

Jul 18th, 2018