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3 - Human-induced climate change: present scientific knowledge and uncertainties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Andrew Dessler  and
Edward A. Parson
Andrew Dessler
Affiliation:
Texas A & M University
Edward A. Parson
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Summary

The scientific primer in Section 1.2 discussed the basic physics of climate and why the climate is expected to warm if more greenhouse gases are added to the atmosphere. This chapter deepens the discussion, examining current scientific knowledge of the observed changes in the Earth's climate, the extent of human influence on these changes, and potential future changes in the climate. Contrary to the impression you might get from following the debate in the news, current scientific understanding of the climate, its variations, and influences on it, is actually quite advanced. We parse the questions of the reality and importance of climate change into four separate, specific questions.

  1. * Is the climate changing?

  2. * Are human activities responsible?

  3. * What further climate changes are likely?

  4. * What will the impacts be?

Sections 3.1 through 3.4 review the available evidence and summarize present scientific knowledge on each of these questions, as well as key uncertainties and controversies. Section 3.5 reviews a few of the most widely circulated claims that deny the main points of current scientific knowledge about climate change. Mostly circulated in non-scientific forums, these claims are usually presented by those who oppose policy action to limit climate change, sometimes called “climate change skeptics.”

Type
Chapter
Information
The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change
A Guide to the Debate
 , pp. 61 - 111
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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References

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This report is a synthesis of the key findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) and is written in plain language accessible to policy-makers and the general public. The ACIA is a comprehensively researched and peer-reviewed assessment of Arctic climate change and its impacts for the region and for the world. It was written by an international team of hundreds of scientists, and also includes the special knowledge of indigenous people. This synthesis, as well as the full report, are available online at http://www.acia.uaf.edu.
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,IPCC (2007b). Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Parry, M.L., Canziani, O.F., Palutikof, J.P., Linden, P.J., and Hanson, C.E. (eds.) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 976 pp.Google Scholar
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This peer-reviewed assessment describes the numerous details of a calculation of the global average temperature. The trends in several important data sets are compared, and it is concluded that the trends are all generally consistent, although some discrepancies do exist.
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This report, produced by the US Climate Change Science Program, provides a detailed assessment of potential climate-change impacts, vulnerabilities, and capacity for adaptation for the United States. Separate studies examine effects of climate change on nine major US regions and seven sectors of national importance, updating the last comprehensive assessment of US impacts of climate change and variability published in 2001. Like the IPCC reports, this assessment involved the work of hundreds of scientists and was subjected to a rigorous and thoroughly documented process of peer review.
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A highly readable and accessible history of major developments in the science of climate change, from the nineteenth century through the formation of the modern consensus about the reality and predominant human cause of recent climate change as expressed in the 2001 IPCC report.

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