Tools
ToolsHegerl, Gabriele C, Brönnimann, Stefan, Cowan, Tim, Friedman, Andrew R, Hawkins, Ed, Iles, Carley, Müller, Wolfgang, Schurer, Andrew and Undorf, Sabine (2019) Causes of climate change over the historical record. Environmental Research Letters, 14 (12). ISSN 1748-9326
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
This review addresses the causes of observed climate variations across the industrial period, from 1750 to present. It focuses on long-term changes, both in response to externalforcing and to climate variability in the ocean and atmosphere. A synthesis of resultsfrom attribution studies based on palaeoclimatic reconstructions covering the recentfew centuries to the 20th century, and instrumental data shows how greenhouse gases began to cause warming since the beginning of industrialization, causing trends that are attributable to greenhouse gases by 1900 in proxy-based temperature reconstructions. Their influence increased over time, dominating recent trends. However, otherforcings have caused substantial deviations from this emerging greenhouse warming trend: volcanic eruptions have caused strong cooling following a period of unusually heavy activity, such as in the early 19th century; or warming during periods of low activity, such as in the early-to-mid 20th century. Anthropogenic aerosolforcing most likely masked some global greenhouse warming over the 20th century, especially since the accelerated increase in sulphate aerosol emissions starting around 1950. Based on modelling and attribution studies, aerosolforcing has also influenced regional temperatures, caused long-term changes in monsoons and imprinted on Atlantic variability. Multi-decadal variations in atmospheric modes can also cause longterm climate variability, as apparentfor the example of the North Atlantic Oscillation, and have influenced Atlantic ocean variability. Long-term precipitation changes are more difficult to attribute to external forcing due to spatial sparseness of data and noisiness of precipitation changes, but the observed pattern of precipitation response to warmingfrom station data supports climate model simulated changes and with it, predictions. The long-term warming has also led to significant differences in daily variability as,for example, visible in long European station data. Extreme events over the historical record provide valuable samples of possible extreme events and their mechanisms.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Data availability statement Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study. Graphs shown in the study are either based on studies published elsewhere, or derived from data publically available including from JASMIN (for CMIP5 results) and observational data providers. Derivation of graphs that are not directly from other papers is described in detail in the paper; but time series shown can be provided from the first author on reasonable request. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | climate change,instrumental record,attribution,extreme events,precipitation,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Dec 2025 10:30 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Dec 2025 13:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101386 |
| DOI: | 10.1088/1748-9326/ab4557 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |