research hypothesis about climate change

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A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures

Kashif abbass.

1 School of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094 People’s Republic of China

Muhammad Zeeshan Qasim

2 Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Xiaolingwei 200, Nanjing, 210094 People’s Republic of China

Huaming Song

Muntasir murshed.

3 School of Business and Economics, North South University, Dhaka, 1229 Bangladesh

4 Department of Journalism, Media and Communications, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Haider Mahmood

5 Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, 173, Alkharj, 11942 Saudi Arabia

Ijaz Younis

Associated data.

Data sources and relevant links are provided in the paper to access data.

Climate change is a long-lasting change in the weather arrays across tropics to polls. It is a global threat that has embarked on to put stress on various sectors. This study is aimed to conceptually engineer how climate variability is deteriorating the sustainability of diverse sectors worldwide. Specifically, the agricultural sector’s vulnerability is a globally concerning scenario, as sufficient production and food supplies are threatened due to irreversible weather fluctuations. In turn, it is challenging the global feeding patterns, particularly in countries with agriculture as an integral part of their economy and total productivity. Climate change has also put the integrity and survival of many species at stake due to shifts in optimum temperature ranges, thereby accelerating biodiversity loss by progressively changing the ecosystem structures. Climate variations increase the likelihood of particular food and waterborne and vector-borne diseases, and a recent example is a coronavirus pandemic. Climate change also accelerates the enigma of antimicrobial resistance, another threat to human health due to the increasing incidence of resistant pathogenic infections. Besides, the global tourism industry is devastated as climate change impacts unfavorable tourism spots. The methodology investigates hypothetical scenarios of climate variability and attempts to describe the quality of evidence to facilitate readers’ careful, critical engagement. Secondary data is used to identify sustainability issues such as environmental, social, and economic viability. To better understand the problem, gathered the information in this report from various media outlets, research agencies, policy papers, newspapers, and other sources. This review is a sectorial assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation approaches worldwide in the aforementioned sectors and the associated economic costs. According to the findings, government involvement is necessary for the country’s long-term development through strict accountability of resources and regulations implemented in the past to generate cutting-edge climate policy. Therefore, mitigating the impacts of climate change must be of the utmost importance, and hence, this global threat requires global commitment to address its dreadful implications to ensure global sustenance.

Introduction

Worldwide observed and anticipated climatic changes for the twenty-first century and global warming are significant global changes that have been encountered during the past 65 years. Climate change (CC) is an inter-governmental complex challenge globally with its influence over various components of the ecological, environmental, socio-political, and socio-economic disciplines (Adger et al.  2005 ; Leal Filho et al.  2021 ; Feliciano et al.  2022 ). Climate change involves heightened temperatures across numerous worlds (Battisti and Naylor  2009 ; Schuurmans  2021 ; Weisheimer and Palmer  2005 ; Yadav et al.  2015 ). With the onset of the industrial revolution, the problem of earth climate was amplified manifold (Leppänen et al.  2014 ). It is reported that the immediate attention and due steps might increase the probability of overcoming its devastating impacts. It is not plausible to interpret the exact consequences of climate change (CC) on a sectoral basis (Izaguirre et al.  2021 ; Jurgilevich et al.  2017 ), which is evident by the emerging level of recognition plus the inclusion of climatic uncertainties at both local and national level of policymaking (Ayers et al.  2014 ).

Climate change is characterized based on the comprehensive long-haul temperature and precipitation trends and other components such as pressure and humidity level in the surrounding environment. Besides, the irregular weather patterns, retreating of global ice sheets, and the corresponding elevated sea level rise are among the most renowned international and domestic effects of climate change (Lipczynska-Kochany  2018 ; Michel et al.  2021 ; Murshed and Dao 2020 ). Before the industrial revolution, natural sources, including volcanoes, forest fires, and seismic activities, were regarded as the distinct sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 O, and H 2 O into the atmosphere (Murshed et al. 2020 ; Hussain et al.  2020 ; Sovacool et al.  2021 ; Usman and Balsalobre-Lorente 2022 ; Murshed 2022 ). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) struck a major agreement to tackle climate change and accelerate and intensify the actions and investments required for a sustainable low-carbon future at Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris on December 12, 2015. The Paris Agreement expands on the Convention by bringing all nations together for the first time in a single cause to undertake ambitious measures to prevent climate change and adapt to its impacts, with increased funding to assist developing countries in doing so. As so, it marks a turning point in the global climate fight. The core goal of the Paris Agreement is to improve the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century well below 2 °C over pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° C (Sharma et al. 2020 ; Sharif et al. 2020 ; Chien et al. 2021 .

Furthermore, the agreement aspires to strengthen nations’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and align financing flows with low GHG emissions and climate-resilient paths (Shahbaz et al. 2019 ; Anwar et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2022a ). To achieve these lofty goals, adequate financial resources must be mobilized and provided, as well as a new technology framework and expanded capacity building, allowing developing countries and the most vulnerable countries to act under their respective national objectives. The agreement also establishes a more transparent action and support mechanism. All Parties are required by the Paris Agreement to do their best through “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the coming years (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2020 ). It includes obligations that all Parties regularly report on their emissions and implementation activities. A global stock-take will be conducted every five years to review collective progress toward the agreement’s goal and inform the Parties’ future individual actions. The Paris Agreement became available for signature on April 22, 2016, Earth Day, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. On November 4, 2016, it went into effect 30 days after the so-called double threshold was met (ratification by 55 nations accounting for at least 55% of world emissions). More countries have ratified and continue to ratify the agreement since then, bringing 125 Parties in early 2017. To fully operationalize the Paris Agreement, a work program was initiated in Paris to define mechanisms, processes, and recommendations on a wide range of concerns (Murshed et al. 2021 ). Since 2016, Parties have collaborated in subsidiary bodies (APA, SBSTA, and SBI) and numerous formed entities. The Conference of the Parties functioning as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) convened for the first time in November 2016 in Marrakesh in conjunction with COP22 and made its first two resolutions. The work plan is scheduled to be finished by 2018. Some mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce the emission in the prospective of Paris agreement are following firstly, a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, secondly, to aim to limit the rise to 1.5 °C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change, thirdly, on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognizing that this will take longer for developing countries, lastly, to undertake rapid reductions after that under the best available science, to achieve a balance between emissions and removals in the second half of the century. On the other side, some adaptation strategies are; strengthening societies’ ability to deal with the effects of climate change and to continue & expand international assistance for developing nations’ adaptation.

However, anthropogenic activities are currently regarded as most accountable for CC (Murshed et al. 2022 ). Apart from the industrial revolution, other anthropogenic activities include excessive agricultural operations, which further involve the high use of fuel-based mechanization, burning of agricultural residues, burning fossil fuels, deforestation, national and domestic transportation sectors, etc. (Huang et al.  2016 ). Consequently, these anthropogenic activities lead to climatic catastrophes, damaging local and global infrastructure, human health, and total productivity. Energy consumption has mounted GHGs levels concerning warming temperatures as most of the energy production in developing countries comes from fossil fuels (Balsalobre-Lorente et al. 2022 ; Usman et al. 2022b ; Abbass et al. 2021a ; Ishikawa-Ishiwata and Furuya  2022 ).

This review aims to highlight the effects of climate change in a socio-scientific aspect by analyzing the existing literature on various sectorial pieces of evidence globally that influence the environment. Although this review provides a thorough examination of climate change and its severe affected sectors that pose a grave danger for global agriculture, biodiversity, health, economy, forestry, and tourism, and to purpose some practical prophylactic measures and mitigation strategies to be adapted as sound substitutes to survive from climate change (CC) impacts. The societal implications of irregular weather patterns and other effects of climate changes are discussed in detail. Some numerous sustainable mitigation measures and adaptation practices and techniques at the global level are discussed in this review with an in-depth focus on its economic, social, and environmental aspects. Methods of data collection section are included in the supplementary information.

Review methodology

Related study and its objectives.

Today, we live an ordinary life in the beautiful digital, globalized world where climate change has a decisive role. What happens in one country has a massive influence on geographically far apart countries, which points to the current crisis known as COVID-19 (Sarkar et al.  2021 ). The most dangerous disease like COVID-19 has affected the world’s climate changes and economic conditions (Abbass et al. 2022 ; Pirasteh-Anosheh et al.  2021 ). The purpose of the present study is to review the status of research on the subject, which is based on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures” by systematically reviewing past published and unpublished research work. Furthermore, the current study seeks to comment on research on the same topic and suggest future research on the same topic. Specifically, the present study aims: The first one is, organize publications to make them easy and quick to find. Secondly, to explore issues in this area, propose an outline of research for future work. The third aim of the study is to synthesize the previous literature on climate change, various sectors, and their mitigation measurement. Lastly , classify the articles according to the different methods and procedures that have been adopted.

Review methodology for reviewers

This review-based article followed systematic literature review techniques that have proved the literature review as a rigorous framework (Benita  2021 ; Tranfield et al.  2003 ). Moreover, we illustrate in Fig.  1 the search method that we have started for this research. First, finalized the research theme to search literature (Cooper et al.  2018 ). Second, used numerous research databases to search related articles and download from the database (Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus Index Journals, Emerald, Elsevier Science Direct, Springer, and Sciverse). We focused on various articles, with research articles, feedback pieces, short notes, debates, and review articles published in scholarly journals. Reports used to search for multiple keywords such as “Climate Change,” “Mitigation and Adaptation,” “Department of Agriculture and Human Health,” “Department of Biodiversity and Forestry,” etc.; in summary, keyword list and full text have been made. Initially, the search for keywords yielded a large amount of literature.

Methodology search for finalized articles for investigations.

Source : constructed by authors

Since 2020, it has been impossible to review all the articles found; some restrictions have been set for the literature exhibition. The study searched 95 articles on a different database mentioned above based on the nature of the study. It excluded 40 irrelevant papers due to copied from a previous search after readings tiles, abstract and full pieces. The criteria for inclusion were: (i) articles focused on “Global Climate Change Impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures,” and (ii) the search key terms related to study requirements. The complete procedure yielded 55 articles for our study. We repeat our search on the “Web of Science and Google Scholars” database to enhance the search results and check the referenced articles.

In this study, 55 articles are reviewed systematically and analyzed for research topics and other aspects, such as the methods, contexts, and theories used in these studies. Furthermore, this study analyzes closely related areas to provide unique research opportunities in the future. The study also discussed future direction opportunities and research questions by understanding the research findings climate changes and other affected sectors. The reviewed paper framework analysis process is outlined in Fig.  2 .

Framework of the analysis Process.

Natural disasters and climate change’s socio-economic consequences

Natural and environmental disasters can be highly variable from year to year; some years pass with very few deaths before a significant disaster event claims many lives (Symanski et al.  2021 ). Approximately 60,000 people globally died from natural disasters each year on average over the past decade (Ritchie and Roser  2014 ; Wiranata and Simbolon  2021 ). So, according to the report, around 0.1% of global deaths. Annual variability in the number and share of deaths from natural disasters in recent decades are shown in Fig.  3 . The number of fatalities can be meager—sometimes less than 10,000, and as few as 0.01% of all deaths. But shock events have a devastating impact: the 1983–1985 famine and drought in Ethiopia; the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami; Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in 2008; and the 2010 Port-au-Prince earthquake in Haiti and now recent example is COVID-19 pandemic (Erman et al.  2021 ). These events pushed global disaster deaths to over 200,000—more than 0.4% of deaths in these years. Low-frequency, high-impact events such as earthquakes and tsunamis are not preventable, but such high losses of human life are. Historical evidence shows that earlier disaster detection, more robust infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and response programmers have substantially reduced disaster deaths worldwide. Low-income is also the most vulnerable to disasters; improving living conditions, facilities, and response services in these areas would be critical in reducing natural disaster deaths in the coming decades.

Global deaths from natural disasters, 1978 to 2020.

Source EMDAT ( 2020 )

The interior regions of the continent are likely to be impacted by rising temperatures (Dimri et al.  2018 ; Goes et al.  2020 ; Mannig et al.  2018 ; Schuurmans  2021 ). Weather patterns change due to the shortage of natural resources (water), increase in glacier melting, and rising mercury are likely to cause extinction to many planted species (Gampe et al.  2016 ; Mihiretu et al.  2021 ; Shaffril et al.  2018 ).On the other hand, the coastal ecosystem is on the verge of devastation (Perera et al.  2018 ; Phillips  2018 ). The temperature rises, insect disease outbreaks, health-related problems, and seasonal and lifestyle changes are persistent, with a strong probability of these patterns continuing in the future (Abbass et al. 2021c ; Hussain et al.  2018 ). At the global level, a shortage of good infrastructure and insufficient adaptive capacity are hammering the most (IPCC  2013 ). In addition to the above concerns, a lack of environmental education and knowledge, outdated consumer behavior, a scarcity of incentives, a lack of legislation, and the government’s lack of commitment to climate change contribute to the general public’s concerns. By 2050, a 2 to 3% rise in mercury and a drastic shift in rainfall patterns may have serious consequences (Huang et al. 2022 ; Gorst et al.  2018 ). Natural and environmental calamities caused huge losses globally, such as decreased agriculture outputs, rehabilitation of the system, and rebuilding necessary technologies (Ali and Erenstein  2017 ; Ramankutty et al.  2018 ; Yu et al.  2021 ) (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). Furthermore, in the last 3 or 4 years, the world has been plagued by smog-related eye and skin diseases, as well as a rise in road accidents due to poor visibility.

Main natural danger statistics for 1985–2020 at the global level

Source: EM-DAT ( 2020 )

Climate change and agriculture

Global agriculture is the ultimate sector responsible for 30–40% of all greenhouse emissions, which makes it a leading industry predominantly contributing to climate warming and significantly impacted by it (Grieg; Mishra et al.  2021 ; Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Thornton and Lipper  2014 ). Numerous agro-environmental and climatic factors that have a dominant influence on agriculture productivity (Pautasso et al.  2012 ) are significantly impacted in response to precipitation extremes including floods, forest fires, and droughts (Huang  2004 ). Besides, the immense dependency on exhaustible resources also fuels the fire and leads global agriculture to become prone to devastation. Godfray et al. ( 2010 ) mentioned that decline in agriculture challenges the farmer’s quality of life and thus a significant factor to poverty as the food and water supplies are critically impacted by CC (Ortiz et al.  2021 ; Rosenzweig et al.  2014 ). As an essential part of the economic systems, especially in developing countries, agricultural systems affect the overall economy and potentially the well-being of households (Schlenker and Roberts  2009 ). According to the report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, i.e., CH 4, CO 2 , and N 2 O, are increased in the air to extraordinary levels over the last few centuries (Usman and Makhdum 2021 ; Stocker et al.  2013 ). Climate change is the composite outcome of two different factors. The first is the natural causes, and the second is the anthropogenic actions (Karami 2012 ). It is also forecasted that the world may experience a typical rise in temperature stretching from 1 to 3.7 °C at the end of this century (Pachauri et al. 2014 ). The world’s crop production is also highly vulnerable to these global temperature-changing trends as raised temperatures will pose severe negative impacts on crop growth (Reidsma et al. 2009 ). Some of the recent modeling about the fate of global agriculture is briefly described below.

Decline in cereal productivity

Crop productivity will also be affected dramatically in the next few decades due to variations in integral abiotic factors such as temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, and CO 2 . These all factors are included in various regulatory instruments like progress and growth, weather-tempted changes, pest invasions (Cammell and Knight 1992 ), accompanying disease snags (Fand et al. 2012 ), water supplies (Panda et al. 2003 ), high prices of agro-products in world’s agriculture industry, and preeminent quantity of fertilizer consumption. Lobell and field ( 2007 ) claimed that from 1962 to 2002, wheat crop output had condensed significantly due to rising temperatures. Therefore, during 1980–2011, the common wheat productivity trends endorsed extreme temperature events confirmed by Gourdji et al. ( 2013 ) around South Asia, South America, and Central Asia. Various other studies (Asseng, Cao, Zhang, and Ludwig 2009 ; Asseng et al. 2013 ; García et al. 2015 ; Ortiz et al. 2021 ) also proved that wheat output is negatively affected by the rising temperatures and also caused adverse effects on biomass productivity (Calderini et al. 1999 ; Sadras and Slafer 2012 ). Hereafter, the rice crop is also influenced by the high temperatures at night. These difficulties will worsen because the temperature will be rising further in the future owing to CC (Tebaldi et al. 2006 ). Another research conducted in China revealed that a 4.6% of rice production per 1 °C has happened connected with the advancement in night temperatures (Tao et al. 2006 ). Moreover, the average night temperature growth also affected rice indicia cultivar’s output pragmatically during 25 years in the Philippines (Peng et al. 2004 ). It is anticipated that the increase in world average temperature will also cause a substantial reduction in yield (Hatfield et al. 2011 ; Lobell and Gourdji 2012 ). In the southern hemisphere, Parry et al. ( 2007 ) noted a rise of 1–4 °C in average daily temperatures at the end of spring season unti the middle of summers, and this raised temperature reduced crop output by cutting down the time length for phenophases eventually reduce the yield (Hatfield and Prueger 2015 ; R. Ortiz 2008 ). Also, world climate models have recommended that humid and subtropical regions expect to be plentiful prey to the upcoming heat strokes (Battisti and Naylor 2009 ). Grain production is the amalgamation of two constituents: the average weight and the grain output/m 2 , however, in crop production. Crop output is mainly accredited to the grain quantity (Araus et al. 2008 ; Gambín and Borrás 2010 ). In the times of grain set, yield resources are mainly strewn between hitherto defined components, i.e., grain usual weight and grain output, which presents a trade-off between them (Gambín and Borrás 2010 ) beside disparities in per grain integration (B. L. Gambín et al. 2006 ). In addition to this, the maize crop is also susceptible to raised temperatures, principally in the flowering stage (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). In reality, the lower grain number is associated with insufficient acclimatization due to intense photosynthesis and higher respiration and the high-temperature effect on the reproduction phenomena (Edreira and Otegui 2013 ). During the flowering phase, maize visible to heat (30–36 °C) seemed less anthesis-silking intermissions (Edreira et al. 2011 ). Another research by Dupuis and Dumas ( 1990 ) proved that a drop in spikelet when directly visible to high temperatures above 35 °C in vitro pollination. Abnormalities in kernel number claimed by Vega et al. ( 2001 ) is related to conceded plant development during a flowering phase that is linked with the active ear growth phase and categorized as a critical phase for approximation of kernel number during silking (Otegui and Bonhomme 1998 ).

The retort of rice output to high temperature presents disparities in flowering patterns, and seed set lessens and lessens grain weight (Qasim et al. 2020 ; Qasim, Hammad, Maqsood, Tariq, & Chawla). During the daytime, heat directly impacts flowers which lessens the thesis period and quickens the earlier peak flowering (Tao et al. 2006 ). Antagonistic effect of higher daytime temperature d on pollen sprouting proposed seed set decay, whereas, seed set was lengthily reduced than could be explicated by pollen growing at high temperatures 40◦C (Matsui et al. 2001 ).

The decline in wheat output is linked with higher temperatures, confirmed in numerous studies (Semenov 2009 ; Stone and Nicolas 1994 ). High temperatures fast-track the arrangements of plant expansion (Blum et al. 2001 ), diminution photosynthetic process (Salvucci and Crafts‐Brandner 2004 ), and also considerably affect the reproductive operations (Farooq et al. 2011 ).

The destructive impacts of CC induced weather extremes to deteriorate the integrity of crops (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ), e.g., Spartan cold and extreme fog cause falling and discoloration of betel leaves (Rosenzweig et al. 2001 ), giving them a somehow reddish appearance, squeezing of lemon leaves (Pautasso et al. 2012 ), as well as root rot of pineapple, have reported (Vedwan and Rhoades 2001 ). Henceforth, in tackling the disruptive effects of CC, several short-term and long-term management approaches are the crucial need of time (Fig.  4 ). Moreover, various studies (Chaudhary et al. 2011 ; Patz et al. 2005 ; Pautasso et al. 2012 ) have demonstrated adapting trends such as ameliorating crop diversity can yield better adaptability towards CC.

Schematic description of potential impacts of climate change on the agriculture sector and the appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures to overcome its impact.

Climate change impacts on biodiversity

Global biodiversity is among the severe victims of CC because it is the fastest emerging cause of species loss. Studies demonstrated that the massive scale species dynamics are considerably associated with diverse climatic events (Abraham and Chain 1988 ; Manes et al. 2021 ; A. M. D. Ortiz et al. 2021 ). Both the pace and magnitude of CC are altering the compatible habitat ranges for living entities of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial regions. Alterations in general climate regimes influence the integrity of ecosystems in numerous ways, such as variation in the relative abundance of species, range shifts, changes in activity timing, and microhabitat use (Bates et al. 2014 ). The geographic distribution of any species often depends upon its ability to tolerate environmental stresses, biological interactions, and dispersal constraints. Hence, instead of the CC, the local species must only accept, adapt, move, or face extinction (Berg et al. 2010 ). So, the best performer species have a better survival capacity for adjusting to new ecosystems or a decreased perseverance to survive where they are already situated (Bates et al. 2014 ). An important aspect here is the inadequate habitat connectivity and access to microclimates, also crucial in raising the exposure to climate warming and extreme heatwave episodes. For example, the carbon sequestration rates are undergoing fluctuations due to climate-driven expansion in the range of global mangroves (Cavanaugh et al. 2014 ).

Similarly, the loss of kelp-forest ecosystems in various regions and its occupancy by the seaweed turfs has set the track for elevated herbivory by the high influx of tropical fish populations. Not only this, the increased water temperatures have exacerbated the conditions far away from the physiological tolerance level of the kelp communities (Vergés et al. 2016 ; Wernberg et al. 2016 ). Another pertinent danger is the devastation of keystone species, which even has more pervasive effects on the entire communities in that habitat (Zarnetske et al. 2012 ). It is particularly important as CC does not specify specific populations or communities. Eventually, this CC-induced redistribution of species may deteriorate carbon storage and the net ecosystem productivity (Weed et al. 2013 ). Among the typical disruptions, the prominent ones include impacts on marine and terrestrial productivity, marine community assembly, and the extended invasion of toxic cyanobacteria bloom (Fossheim et al. 2015 ).

The CC-impacted species extinction is widely reported in the literature (Beesley et al. 2019 ; Urban 2015 ), and the predictions of demise until the twenty-first century are dreadful (Abbass et al. 2019 ; Pereira et al. 2013 ). In a few cases, northward shifting of species may not be formidable as it allows mountain-dwelling species to find optimum climates. However, the migrant species may be trapped in isolated and incompatible habitats due to losing topography and range (Dullinger et al. 2012 ). For example, a study indicated that the American pika has been extirpated or intensely diminished in some regions, primarily attributed to the CC-impacted extinction or at least local extirpation (Stewart et al. 2015 ). Besides, the anticipation of persistent responses to the impacts of CC often requires data records of several decades to rigorously analyze the critical pre and post CC patterns at species and ecosystem levels (Manes et al. 2021 ; Testa et al. 2018 ).

Nonetheless, the availability of such long-term data records is rare; hence, attempts are needed to focus on these profound aspects. Biodiversity is also vulnerable to the other associated impacts of CC, such as rising temperatures, droughts, and certain invasive pest species. For instance, a study revealed the changes in the composition of plankton communities attributed to rising temperatures. Henceforth, alterations in such aquatic producer communities, i.e., diatoms and calcareous plants, can ultimately lead to variation in the recycling of biological carbon. Moreover, such changes are characterized as a potential contributor to CO 2 differences between the Pleistocene glacial and interglacial periods (Kohfeld et al. 2005 ).

Climate change implications on human health

It is an understood corporality that human health is a significant victim of CC (Costello et al. 2009 ). According to the WHO, CC might be responsible for 250,000 additional deaths per year during 2030–2050 (Watts et al. 2015 ). These deaths are attributed to extreme weather-induced mortality and morbidity and the global expansion of vector-borne diseases (Lemery et al. 2021; Yang and Usman 2021 ; Meierrieks 2021 ; UNEP 2017 ). Here, some of the emerging health issues pertinent to this global problem are briefly described.

Climate change and antimicrobial resistance with corresponding economic costs

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an up-surging complex global health challenge (Garner et al. 2019 ; Lemery et al. 2021 ). Health professionals across the globe are extremely worried due to this phenomenon that has critical potential to reverse almost all the progress that has been achieved so far in the health discipline (Gosling and Arnell 2016 ). A massive amount of antibiotics is produced by many pharmaceutical industries worldwide, and the pathogenic microorganisms are gradually developing resistance to them, which can be comprehended how strongly this aspect can shake the foundations of national and global economies (UNEP 2017 ). This statement is supported by the fact that AMR is not developing in a particular region or country. Instead, it is flourishing in every continent of the world (WHO 2018 ). This plague is heavily pushing humanity to the post-antibiotic era, in which currently antibiotic-susceptible pathogens will once again lead to certain endemics and pandemics after being resistant(WHO 2018 ). Undesirably, if this statement would become a factuality, there might emerge certain risks in undertaking sophisticated interventions such as chemotherapy, joint replacement cases, and organ transplantation (Su et al. 2018 ). Presently, the amplification of drug resistance cases has made common illnesses like pneumonia, post-surgical infections, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, etc., too difficult and costly to be treated or cure well (WHO 2018 ). From a simple example, it can be assumed how easily antibiotic-resistant strains can be transmitted from one person to another and ultimately travel across the boundaries (Berendonk et al. 2015 ). Talking about the second- and third-generation classes of antibiotics, e.g., most renowned generations of cephalosporin antibiotics that are more expensive, broad-spectrum, more toxic, and usually require more extended periods whenever prescribed to patients (Lemery et al. 2021 ; Pärnänen et al. 2019 ). This scenario has also revealed that the abundance of resistant strains of pathogens was also higher in the Southern part (WHO 2018 ). As southern parts are generally warmer than their counterparts, it is evident from this example how CC-induced global warming can augment the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains within the biosphere, eventually putting additional economic burden in the face of developing new and costlier antibiotics. The ARG exchange to susceptible bacteria through one of the potential mechanisms, transformation, transduction, and conjugation; Selection pressure can be caused by certain antibiotics, metals or pesticides, etc., as shown in Fig.  5 .

A typical interaction between the susceptible and resistant strains.

Source: Elsayed et al. ( 2021 ); Karkman et al. ( 2018 )

Certain studies highlighted that conventional urban wastewater treatment plants are typical hotspots where most bacterial strains exchange genetic material through horizontal gene transfer (Fig.  5 ). Although at present, the extent of risks associated with the antibiotic resistance found in wastewater is complicated; environmental scientists and engineers have particular concerns about the potential impacts of these antibiotic resistance genes on human health (Ashbolt 2015 ). At most undesirable and worst case, these antibiotic-resistant genes containing bacteria can make their way to enter into the environment (Pruden et al. 2013 ), irrigation water used for crops and public water supplies and ultimately become a part of food chains and food webs (Ma et al. 2019 ; D. Wu et al. 2019 ). This problem has been reported manifold in several countries (Hendriksen et al. 2019 ), where wastewater as a means of irrigated water is quite common.

Climate change and vector borne-diseases

Temperature is a fundamental factor for the sustenance of living entities regardless of an ecosystem. So, a specific living being, especially a pathogen, requires a sophisticated temperature range to exist on earth. The second essential component of CC is precipitation, which also impacts numerous infectious agents’ transport and dissemination patterns. Global rising temperature is a significant cause of many species extinction. On the one hand, this changing environmental temperature may be causing species extinction, and on the other, this warming temperature might favor the thriving of some new organisms. Here, it was evident that some pathogens may also upraise once non-evident or reported (Patz et al. 2000 ). This concept can be exemplified through certain pathogenic strains of microorganisms that how the likelihood of various diseases increases in response to climate warming-induced environmental changes (Table ​ (Table2 2 ).

Examples of how various environmental changes affect various infectious diseases in humans

Source: Aron and Patz ( 2001 )

A recent example is an outburst of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Republic of China, causing pneumonia and severe acute respiratory complications (Cui et al. 2021 ; Song et al. 2021 ). The large family of viruses is harbored in numerous animals, bats, and snakes in particular (livescience.com) with the subsequent transfer into human beings. Hence, it is worth noting that the thriving of numerous vectors involved in spreading various diseases is influenced by Climate change (Ogden 2018 ; Santos et al. 2021 ).

Psychological impacts of climate change

Climate change (CC) is responsible for the rapid dissemination and exaggeration of certain epidemics and pandemics. In addition to the vast apparent impacts of climate change on health, forestry, agriculture, etc., it may also have psychological implications on vulnerable societies. It can be exemplified through the recent outburst of (COVID-19) in various countries around the world (Pal 2021 ). Besides, the victims of this viral infection have made healthy beings scarier and terrified. In the wake of such epidemics, people with common colds or fever are also frightened and must pass specific regulatory protocols. Living in such situations continuously terrifies the public and makes the stress familiar, which eventually makes them psychologically weak (npr.org).

CC boosts the extent of anxiety, distress, and other issues in public, pushing them to develop various mental-related problems. Besides, frequent exposure to extreme climatic catastrophes such as geological disasters also imprints post-traumatic disorder, and their ubiquitous occurrence paves the way to developing chronic psychological dysfunction. Moreover, repetitive listening from media also causes an increase in the person’s stress level (Association 2020 ). Similarly, communities living in flood-prone areas constantly live in extreme fear of drowning and die by floods. In addition to human lives, the flood-induced destruction of physical infrastructure is a specific reason for putting pressure on these communities (Ogden 2018 ). For instance, Ogden ( 2018 ) comprehensively denoted that Katrina’s Hurricane augmented the mental health issues in the victim communities.

Climate change impacts on the forestry sector

Forests are the global regulators of the world’s climate (FAO 2018 ) and have an indispensable role in regulating global carbon and nitrogen cycles (Rehman et al. 2021 ; Reichstein and Carvalhais 2019 ). Hence, disturbances in forest ecology affect the micro and macro-climates (Ellison et al. 2017 ). Climate warming, in return, has profound impacts on the growth and productivity of transboundary forests by influencing the temperature and precipitation patterns, etc. As CC induces specific changes in the typical structure and functions of ecosystems (Zhang et al. 2017 ) as well impacts forest health, climate change also has several devastating consequences such as forest fires, droughts, pest outbreaks (EPA 2018 ), and last but not the least is the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities. The rising frequency and intensity of another CC product, i.e., droughts, pose plenty of challenges to the well-being of global forests (Diffenbaugh et al. 2017 ), which is further projected to increase soon (Hartmann et al. 2018 ; Lehner et al. 2017 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ). Hence, CC induces storms, with more significant impacts also put extra pressure on the survival of the global forests (Martínez-Alvarado et al. 2018 ), significantly since their influences are augmented during higher winter precipitations with corresponding wetter soils causing weak root anchorage of trees (Brázdil et al. 2018 ). Surging temperature regimes causes alterations in usual precipitation patterns, which is a significant hurdle for the survival of temperate forests (Allen et al. 2010 ; Flannigan et al. 2013 ), letting them encounter severe stress and disturbances which adversely affects the local tree species (Hubbart et al. 2016 ; Millar and Stephenson 2015 ; Rehman et al. 2021 ).

Climate change impacts on forest-dependent communities

Forests are the fundamental livelihood resource for about 1.6 billion people worldwide; out of them, 350 million are distinguished with relatively higher reliance (Bank 2008 ). Agro-forestry-dependent communities comprise 1.2 billion, and 60 million indigenous people solely rely on forests and their products to sustain their lives (Sunderlin et al. 2005 ). For example, in the entire African continent, more than 2/3rd of inhabitants depend on forest resources and woodlands for their alimonies, e.g., food, fuelwood and grazing (Wasiq and Ahmad 2004 ). The livings of these people are more intensely affected by the climatic disruptions making their lives harder (Brown et al. 2014 ). On the one hand, forest communities are incredibly vulnerable to CC due to their livelihoods, cultural and spiritual ties as well as socio-ecological connections, and on the other, they are not familiar with the term “climate change.” (Rahman and Alam 2016 ). Among the destructive impacts of temperature and rainfall, disruption of the agroforestry crops with resultant downscale growth and yield (Macchi et al. 2008 ). Cruz ( 2015 ) ascribed that forest-dependent smallholder farmers in the Philippines face the enigma of delayed fruiting, more severe damages by insect and pest incidences due to unfavorable temperature regimes, and changed rainfall patterns.

Among these series of challenges to forest communities, their well-being is also distinctly vulnerable to CC. Though the detailed climate change impacts on human health have been comprehensively mentioned in the previous section, some studies have listed a few more devastating effects on the prosperity of forest-dependent communities. For instance, the Himalayan people have been experiencing frequent skin-borne diseases such as malaria and other skin diseases due to increasing mosquitoes, wild boar as well, and new wasps species, particularly in higher altitudes that were almost non-existent before last 5–10 years (Xu et al. 2008 ). Similarly, people living at high altitudes in Bangladesh have experienced frequent mosquito-borne calamities (Fardous; Sharma 2012 ). In addition, the pace of other waterborne diseases such as infectious diarrhea, cholera, pathogenic induced abdominal complications and dengue has also been boosted in other distinguished regions of Bangladesh (Cell 2009 ; Gunter et al. 2008 ).

Pest outbreak

Upscaling hotter climate may positively affect the mobile organisms with shorter generation times because they can scurry from harsh conditions than the immobile species (Fettig et al. 2013 ; Schoene and Bernier 2012 ) and are also relatively more capable of adapting to new environments (Jactel et al. 2019 ). It reveals that insects adapt quickly to global warming due to their mobility advantages. Due to past outbreaks, the trees (forests) are relatively more susceptible victims (Kurz et al. 2008 ). Before CC, the influence of factors mentioned earlier, i.e., droughts and storms, was existent and made the forests susceptible to insect pest interventions; however, the global forests remain steadfast, assiduous, and green (Jactel et al. 2019 ). The typical reasons could be the insect herbivores were regulated by several tree defenses and pressures of predation (Wilkinson and Sherratt 2016 ). As climate greatly influences these phenomena, the global forests cannot be so sedulous against such challenges (Jactel et al. 2019 ). Table ​ Table3 3 demonstrates some of the particular considerations with practical examples that are essential while mitigating the impacts of CC in the forestry sector.

Essential considerations while mitigating the climate change impacts on the forestry sector

Source : Fischer ( 2019 )

Climate change impacts on tourism

Tourism is a commercial activity that has roots in multi-dimensions and an efficient tool with adequate job generation potential, revenue creation, earning of spectacular foreign exchange, enhancement in cross-cultural promulgation and cooperation, a business tool for entrepreneurs and eventually for the country’s national development (Arshad et al. 2018 ; Scott 2021 ). Among a plethora of other disciplines, the tourism industry is also a distinct victim of climate warming (Gössling et al. 2012 ; Hall et al. 2015 ) as the climate is among the essential resources that enable tourism in particular regions as most preferred locations. Different places at different times of the year attract tourists both within and across the countries depending upon the feasibility and compatibility of particular weather patterns. Hence, the massive variations in these weather patterns resulting from CC will eventually lead to monumental challenges to the local economy in that specific area’s particular and national economy (Bujosa et al. 2015 ). For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report demonstrated that the global tourism industry had faced a considerable decline in the duration of ski season, including the loss of some ski areas and the dramatic shifts in tourist destinations’ climate warming.

Furthermore, different studies (Neuvonen et al. 2015 ; Scott et al. 2004 ) indicated that various currently perfect tourist spots, e.g., coastal areas, splendid islands, and ski resorts, will suffer consequences of CC. It is also worth noting that the quality and potential of administrative management potential to cope with the influence of CC on the tourism industry is of crucial significance, which renders specific strengths of resiliency to numerous destinations to withstand against it (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). Similarly, in the partial or complete absence of adequate socio-economic and socio-political capital, the high-demanding tourist sites scurry towards the verge of vulnerability. The susceptibility of tourism is based on different components such as the extent of exposure, sensitivity, life-supporting sectors, and capacity assessment factors (Füssel and Hildén 2014 ). It is obvious corporality that sectors such as health, food, ecosystems, human habitat, infrastructure, water availability, and the accessibility of a particular region are prone to CC. Henceforth, the sensitivity of these critical sectors to CC and, in return, the adaptive measures are a hallmark in determining the composite vulnerability of climate warming (Ionescu et al. 2009 ).

Moreover, the dependence on imported food items, poor hygienic conditions, and inadequate health professionals are dominant aspects affecting the local terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. Meanwhile, the greater dependency on ecosystem services and its products also makes a destination more fragile to become a prey of CC (Rizvi et al. 2015 ). Some significant non-climatic factors are important indicators of a particular ecosystem’s typical health and functioning, e.g., resource richness and abundance portray the picture of ecosystem stability. Similarly, the species abundance is also a productive tool that ensures that the ecosystem has a higher buffering capacity, which is terrific in terms of resiliency (Roscher et al. 2013 ).

Climate change impacts on the economic sector

Climate plays a significant role in overall productivity and economic growth. Due to its increasingly global existence and its effect on economic growth, CC has become one of the major concerns of both local and international environmental policymakers (Ferreira et al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Abbass et al. 2021b ; Lamperti et al. 2021 ). The adverse effects of CC on the overall productivity factor of the agricultural sector are therefore significant for understanding the creation of local adaptation policies and the composition of productive climate policy contracts. Previous studies on CC in the world have already forecasted its effects on the agricultural sector. Researchers have found that global CC will impact the agricultural sector in different world regions. The study of the impacts of CC on various agrarian activities in other demographic areas and the development of relative strategies to respond to effects has become a focal point for researchers (Chandioet al. 2020 ; Gleditsch 2021 ; Mosavi et al. 2020 ).

With the rapid growth of global warming since the 1980s, the temperature has started increasing globally, which resulted in the incredible transformation of rain and evaporation in the countries. The agricultural development of many countries has been reliant, delicate, and susceptible to CC for a long time, and it is on the development of agriculture total factor productivity (ATFP) influence different crops and yields of farmers (Alhassan 2021 ; Wu  2020 ).

Food security and natural disasters are increasing rapidly in the world. Several major climatic/natural disasters have impacted local crop production in the countries concerned. The effects of these natural disasters have been poorly controlled by the development of the economies and populations and may affect human life as well. One example is China, which is among the world’s most affected countries, vulnerable to natural disasters due to its large population, harsh environmental conditions, rapid CC, low environmental stability, and disaster power. According to the January 2016 statistical survey, China experienced an economic loss of 298.3 billion Yuan, and about 137 million Chinese people were severely affected by various natural disasters (Xie et al. 2018 ).

Mitigation and adaptation strategies of climate changes

Adaptation and mitigation are the crucial factors to address the response to CC (Jahanzad et al. 2020 ). Researchers define mitigation on climate changes, and on the other hand, adaptation directly impacts climate changes like floods. To some extent, mitigation reduces or moderates greenhouse gas emission, and it becomes a critical issue both economically and environmentally (Botzen et al. 2021 ; Jahanzad et al. 2020 ; Kongsager 2018 ; Smit et al. 2000 ; Vale et al. 2021 ; Usman et al. 2021 ; Verheyen 2005 ).

Researchers have deep concern about the adaptation and mitigation methodologies in sectoral and geographical contexts. Agriculture, industry, forestry, transport, and land use are the main sectors to adapt and mitigate policies(Kärkkäinen et al. 2020 ; Waheed et al. 2021 ). Adaptation and mitigation require particular concern both at the national and international levels. The world has faced a significant problem of climate change in the last decades, and adaptation to these effects is compulsory for economic and social development. To adapt and mitigate against CC, one should develop policies and strategies at the international level (Hussain et al. 2020 ). Figure  6 depicts the list of current studies on sectoral impacts of CC with adaptation and mitigation measures globally.

Sectoral impacts of climate change with adaptation and mitigation measures.

Conclusion and future perspectives

Specific socio-agricultural, socio-economic, and physical systems are the cornerstone of psychological well-being, and the alteration in these systems by CC will have disastrous impacts. Climate variability, alongside other anthropogenic and natural stressors, influences human and environmental health sustainability. Food security is another concerning scenario that may lead to compromised food quality, higher food prices, and inadequate food distribution systems. Global forests are challenged by different climatic factors such as storms, droughts, flash floods, and intense precipitation. On the other hand, their anthropogenic wiping is aggrandizing their existence. Undoubtedly, the vulnerability scale of the world’s regions differs; however, appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures can aid the decision-making bodies in developing effective policies to tackle its impacts. Presently, modern life on earth has tailored to consistent climatic patterns, and accordingly, adapting to such considerable variations is of paramount importance. Because the faster changes in climate will make it harder to survive and adjust, this globally-raising enigma calls for immediate attention at every scale ranging from elementary community level to international level. Still, much effort, research, and dedication are required, which is the most critical time. Some policy implications can help us to mitigate the consequences of climate change, especially the most affected sectors like the agriculture sector;

Warming might lengthen the season in frost-prone growing regions (temperate and arctic zones), allowing for longer-maturing seasonal cultivars with better yields (Pfadenhauer 2020 ; Bonacci 2019 ). Extending the planting season may allow additional crops each year; when warming leads to frequent warmer months highs over critical thresholds, a split season with a brief summer fallow may be conceivable for short-period crops such as wheat barley, cereals, and many other vegetable crops. The capacity to prolong the planting season in tropical and subtropical places where the harvest season is constrained by precipitation or agriculture farming occurs after the year may be more limited and dependent on how precipitation patterns vary (Wu et al. 2017 ).

The genetic component is comprehensive for many yields, but it is restricted like kiwi fruit for a few. Ali et al. ( 2017 ) investigated how new crops will react to climatic changes (also stated in Mall et al. 2017 ). Hot temperature, drought, insect resistance; salt tolerance; and overall crop production and product quality increases would all be advantageous (Akkari 2016 ). Genetic mapping and engineering can introduce a greater spectrum of features. The adoption of genetically altered cultivars has been slowed, particularly in the early forecasts owing to the complexity in ensuring features are expediently expressed throughout the entire plant, customer concerns, economic profitability, and regulatory impediments (Wirehn 2018 ; Davidson et al. 2016 ).

To get the full benefit of the CO 2 would certainly require additional nitrogen and other fertilizers. Nitrogen not consumed by the plants may be excreted into groundwater, discharged into water surface, or emitted from the land, soil nitrous oxide when large doses of fertilizer are sprayed. Increased nitrogen levels in groundwater sources have been related to human chronic illnesses and impact marine ecosystems. Cultivation, grain drying, and other field activities have all been examined in depth in the studies (Barua et al. 2018 ).

• The technological and socio-economic adaptation

The policy consequence of the causative conclusion is that as a source of alternative energy, biofuel production is one of the routes that explain oil price volatility separate from international macroeconomic factors. Even though biofuel production has just begun in a few sample nations, there is still a tremendous worldwide need for feedstock to satisfy industrial expansion in China and the USA, which explains the food price relationship to the global oil price. Essentially, oil-exporting countries may create incentives in their economies to increase food production. It may accomplish by giving farmers financing, seedlings, fertilizers, and farming equipment. Because of the declining global oil price and, as a result, their earnings from oil export, oil-producing nations may be unable to subsidize food imports even in the near term. As a result, these countries can boost the agricultural value chain for export. It may be accomplished through R&D and adding value to their food products to increase income by correcting exchange rate misalignment and adverse trade terms. These nations may also diversify their economies away from oil, as dependence on oil exports alone is no longer economically viable given the extreme volatility of global oil prices. Finally, resource-rich and oil-exporting countries can convert to non-food renewable energy sources such as solar, hydro, coal, wind, wave, and tidal energy. By doing so, both world food and oil supplies would be maintained rather than harmed.

IRENA’s modeling work shows that, if a comprehensive policy framework is in place, efforts toward decarbonizing the energy future will benefit economic activity, jobs (outweighing losses in the fossil fuel industry), and welfare. Countries with weak domestic supply chains and a large reliance on fossil fuel income, in particular, must undertake structural reforms to capitalize on the opportunities inherent in the energy transition. Governments continue to give major policy assistance to extract fossil fuels, including tax incentives, financing, direct infrastructure expenditures, exemptions from environmental regulations, and other measures. The majority of major oil and gas producing countries intend to increase output. Some countries intend to cut coal output, while others plan to maintain or expand it. While some nations are beginning to explore and execute policies aimed at a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuel production, these efforts have yet to impact major producing countries’ plans and goals. Verifiable and comparable data on fossil fuel output and assistance from governments and industries are critical to closing the production gap. Governments could increase openness by declaring their production intentions in their climate obligations under the Paris Agreement.

It is firmly believed that achieving the Paris Agreement commitments is doubtlful without undergoing renewable energy transition across the globe (Murshed 2020 ; Zhao et al. 2022 ). Policy instruments play the most important role in determining the degree of investment in renewable energy technology. This study examines the efficacy of various policy strategies in the renewable energy industry of multiple nations. Although its impact is more visible in established renewable energy markets, a renewable portfolio standard is also a useful policy instrument. The cost of producing renewable energy is still greater than other traditional energy sources. Furthermore, government incentives in the R&D sector can foster innovation in this field, resulting in cost reductions in the renewable energy industry. These nations may export their technologies and share their policy experiences by forming networks among their renewable energy-focused organizations. All policy measures aim to reduce production costs while increasing the proportion of renewables to a country’s energy system. Meanwhile, long-term contracts with renewable energy providers, government commitment and control, and the establishment of long-term goals can assist developing nations in deploying renewable energy technology in their energy sector.

Author contribution

KA: Writing the original manuscript, data collection, data analysis, Study design, Formal analysis, Visualization, Revised draft, Writing-review, and editing. MZQ: Writing the original manuscript, data collection, data analysis, Writing-review, and editing. HS: Contribution to the contextualization of the theme, Conceptualization, Validation, Supervision, literature review, Revised drapt, and writing review and editing. MM: Writing review and editing, compiling the literature review, language editing. HM: Writing review and editing, compiling the literature review, language editing. IY: Contribution to the contextualization of the theme, literature review, and writing review and editing.

Availability of data and material

Declarations.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Contributor Information

Kashif Abbass, Email: nc.ude.tsujn@ssabbafihsak .

Muhammad Zeeshan Qasim, Email: moc.kooltuo@888misaqnahseez .

Huaming Song, Email: nc.ude.tsujn@gnimauh .

Muntasir Murshed, Email: [email protected] .

Haider Mahmood, Email: moc.liamtoh@doomhamrediah .

Ijaz Younis, Email: nc.ude.tsujn@sinuoyzaji .

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Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature

Mark Lynas 4,1 , Benjamin Z Houlton 2 and Simon Perry 3

Published 19 October 2021 • © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd Environmental Research Letters , Volume 16 , Number 11 Citation Mark Lynas et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 114005 DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966

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1 Visiting Fellow, Cornell University, Global Development, Alliance for Science, B75 Mann Library, Ithaca, NY 14850, United States of America

2 Cornell University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Department of Global Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, United States of America

3 Alliance for Science, Ithaca, NY 14850, United States of America

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4 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.

• Received 7 June 2021
• Accepted 23 September 2021
• Published 19 October 2021

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Method : Double-anonymous Revisions: 2 Screened for originality? Yes

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While controls over the Earth's climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change by searching the recent literature for papers sceptical of anthropogenic-caused global warming. From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate change—expressed as a proportion of the total publications—exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

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1. Introduction

The extent of the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is of great interest to society. If there remains substantial genuine scientific doubt about whether modern climate change is human-caused, then the case for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions is weakened. By contrast, a widely-held consensus view in the peer-reviewed literature invalidates alternative arguments which claim that there is still significant debate in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change (ACC).

The question of the cause of observed and predicted global warming and precipitation change is still highly politically salient. A Gallup poll published in April 2021 found that there has been a deepening of the partisan divide in American politics on whether observed increases in the planet's temperature since the Industrial Revolution are primarily caused by humans [ 1 ]. Among elected U.S. politicians the divide is similarly stark: according to the Center for American Progress there were 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress (sitting in 2021), including 109 representatives and 30 senators, 'who refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change' [ 2 ]. In 2016 Pew Research found that only 27% of U.S. adults believed that 'almost all' scientists agreed that climate change is due to human activity [ 3 ].

Many efforts have been made over the years to quantify the extent of the scientific consensus on ACC [ 4 , 5 ]. These are comprehensively reviewed in a paper published in 2016 entitled 'Consensus on consensus' [ 6 ]. It has additionally been argued that perception of scientific consensus is a 'gateway belief' motivating wider public support for mitigation of climate change [ 7 ]. While scientific consensus does not sensu stricto prove a statement about the physical world, science-based anlaysis and hypothesis testing is capable of disproving alternative constructs, which could explain a given observation, either absolutely or relatively [ 8 ]. Hence, quantifying the scientific consensus clarifies the extent of any dissent in the scientific community in the process of disproval, and the plausible validity of alternative hypotheses in the face of scientific scrutiny, observations, and testing over time.

The most recent well-known effort to quantify the consensus was published in 2013, encompassing papers appearing in the peer-reviewed literature between 1991 and 2012, and sparked the famous headline that 97% of the world's science supported the climate change consensus [ 9 ]. The '97% consensus' view (published by Cook et al 2013, referred to hereafter as C13) had a big impact on global awareness of the scientific consensus on the role of greenhouse gases in causing climate change and was extensively covered in the media. Our primary motivation for this current study was to re-examine the literature published since 2012 to ascertain whether any change in the scientific consensus on climate change is discernible.

Previous attempts to quantify the consensus on climate change have employed many different methodologies, varying from expert elicitation to examination of abstracts returned by a keyword search. We base our methodology on C13 with some important refinements. We searched the Web of Science for English language 'articles' added between the dates of 2012 and November 2020 with the keywords 'climate change', 'global climate change' and 'global warming'. C13 used the latter two phrases but not 'climate change' without the preceding 'global'. (As discussed below, this was justified post-facto in our study because the majority of sceptical papers we found would not have been returned had we used the same search phrases as C13.) This wider set of search terms yielded a total of 88125 papers, whereas C13 identified a total of 11944 abstracts from papers published over the years 1991 and 2011. (Using our expanded search terms over the same 1991–2011 time period as C13 would have yielded 30627 results.)

Given the large number of papers found using our approach we randomly sub-sampled 3000 abstracts out of the 88125 total papers identified in our search, and subsequently categorized them in accordance with C13 (See table 1 ).

Table 1.  Categorization of climate papers, as per C13.

As per C13 we rated the abstracts of papers, assigning them numbers according to their level of implicit or explicit endorsement or rejection of ACC (table 2 ). Abstracts were rated with only the title and abstract visible; information about authors, date and journal were hidden at this stage.

Table 2.  Rating of climate papers, as per C13.

To further extend our approach for identifying as many sceptical papers as possible within the full dataset, we created an algorithm to identify keywords within the papers rated by C13 as sceptical that had appeared more often in sceptical papers than consensus papers. The software counted the appearance of every word in the title, author list and abstract of every sceptical paper. For each word that appeared in at least two papers, the algorithm counted the number of sceptical and consensus papers it appeared in to calculate its predictive power. We took the 150 most predictive words, then manually reviewed them to remove words that appeared to be there by chance (e.g. 'walk' and 'nearest') leaving those we believed could be predictively useful (e.g. 'cosmic' and 'rays'). A second algorithm then scored all 88125 papers (including the 3000 sampled separately earlier) based on the appearance of the predictive words. (See supplementary info for precise details of this exercise (available online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/16/114005/mmedia )). We then rated and categorized the 1000 papers with the highest score using the same approaches from C13 as detailed in tables 1 and 2 . As stated earlier, this approach was taken in order to increase the chances of us finding sceptical papers in the full dataset, allowing for a robust assessment and inclusion of any dissent.

In contrast to C13, we did not perform an author elicitation survey asking authors to carry out a self-rating of their papers.

3.1. Results of random sampling

Our random sample of 3000 papers revealed a total of 282 papers that were categorized as 'not climate-related'. These false-positives occurred because, even though the climate keywords occurred in their title/abstracts, the published articles dealt with social science, education or research about people's views on climate change rather than original scientific work. Hence, we excluded these papers in accordance with C13's approach. We then assessed the remaining total of 2718 papers in the data set and found four that argued against the scientific consensus of ACC.

The ratings and categorizations for the 3000 randomly sampled papers are shown in table 3 . Note that 'not climate-related' papers are displayed in table 3 for completeness. Figure 1 shows the same data, but with 'not climate-related' papers excluded.

Figure 1.   Ratings and categorizations given to 2718 randomly-sampled climate abstracts.

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Table 3.  Results of rating and categorization of 3000 abstracts.

Our estimate of the proportion of consensus papers was 1 − (4/2718) = 99.85%. The 95% confidence limits for this proportion are 99.62%–99.96% (see R code in supplementary info), therefore it is likely that the proportion of climate papers that favour the consensus is at least 99.62%.

Recalculating at the 99.999% confidence level gives us the interval 99.212%–99.996%, therefore it is virtually certain that the proportion of climate papers that do not dispute that the consensus is above 99.212%.

If we repeat the methods of C13 and further exclude papers that take no position on AGW (i.e. those rated 4a), we estimate the proportion of consensus papers to be 99.53% with the 95% confidence interval being 98.80%–99.87%.

3.2. Keywords indicating scepticism

We reviewed the 1000 studies that our keyword matching software identified as most likely to be sceptical out of the entire 88125 dataset. After manual review, 28 sceptical papers within the most likely 1000 papers were identified, with the majority being in the top rows of the dataset. The first paper was sceptical, as were 12 out of the first 50, and 16 out of the first 100. (See supplementary data for the full list.) Table 4 shows how the 1000 studies that the keywords found to be most likely to be sceptical were rated.

Table 4.  Ratings and categorizations for the 1000 abstracts most likely to be sceptical.

In other words, the predictive keywords successfully allowed us to identify a total of 28 papers from the full dataset of 88125 which appeared implicitly or explicitly sceptical of ACC. Only one of these papers had already appeared in the first 3000 randomized sample. While we are aware that this approach does not reveal all sceptical papers that exist in the full dataset, it provides an absolute upper bound to the percentage of papers that agree with the consensus. Knowing that at least 31 (including the 3 additional papers found in the random sample) out of the full 88125 dataset are sceptical, we can say the consensus on ACC is at most 99.966%.

4. Discussion

Our analysis demonstrates >99% agreement in the peer-reviewed scientific literature on the principal role of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities in driving modern climate change (i.e. since the Industrial Revolution). This result further advances our understanding of the scientific consensus view on climate change as evidenced by the peer reviewed scientific literature, and provides additional evidence that the statements made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see below) accurately reflect the overwhelming view of the international scientific community. We conclude that alternative explanations for the dominant cause of modern (i.e., post-industrial) climate change beyond the role of rising GHG emissions from human activities are exceedingly rare in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Previous researchers have debated how to define and therefore quantify 'consensus' in the scientific literature on an array of issues. While C13 define consensus rather narrowly as explicit or implicit agreement, a broader definition can be employed which defines consensus as lack of objection to a prevailing position or worldview. In 2015 James Powell argued for this broader definition, pointing out that the C13 methodology, if applied to other scientific research areas such as plate tectonics or evolution, would fail to find consensus because few authors of papers in the expert literature feel the need to re-state their adherence in both cases to what has long been universally-accepted theory [ 10 ].

In a rejoinder to this critique, several C13 authors argued that their narrower definition of consensus was still relevant in other well-established fields if both implicit and explicit agreement was included [ 11 ]. Therefore in plate tectonics, for example, sea-floor spreading, mountain-building by means of continental collision, subduction etc, could be implicitly supportive of a consensus on the reality of the theory of plate tectonics without this necessarily being explicitly stated.

In our paper, for the sake of clarity and comparability with previous literature, we present results using both approaches. However, having reviewed, rated and categorized several thousand papers we believe that there is now a stronger case for the broader approach given how widely accepted ACC has become in the peer-reviewed literature. For example, a majority of the papers we categorized as being about 'impacts' of climate change did not state a position on whether the phenomenon they were studying—the changing climate—was human-caused. It seems highly unlikely that if researchers felt sceptical about the reality of ACC they would publish numerous studies of its impacts without ever raising the question of attribution.

In other words, given that most 4a ('no position') ratings do not either explicitly or implicitly differ from the consensus view of GHG emissions as the principal driver of climate change it does not follow in our view that these analyses should be a priori excluded from the consensus. In another example, we gave rating '2' ('explicit endorsement without quantification') to all papers referencing future emissions scenarios in their abstracts, because emissions scenarios by definition imply an evaluation of humanity's role in GHG emissions and their subsequent impact on climate. Thus the authors choice of wording on emissions scenarios or other issues implying human causation to climate change in the abstracts of their climate impact studies might lead to arbitrariness if these were taken as the sole indicators of the authors' adherence to the consensus on ACC.

In addition, decisions about whether to give rating '3' ('implicit endorsement') are subjective in that the rating of a position on ACC is considered to be implied by the authors without this being explicitly stated in the abstract of a paper. Thus subjective judgements by those doing the ratings about the implicit meanings communicated by abstract wording choices of paper authors are critical to the numerical consensus result obtained using C13's method, potentially introducing a source of bias. It is unclear to us why this is preferable to defining consensus in a clearer and more objectively transparent way as simply the absence of clearly-stated rejection or disagreement.

We also note that our keyword choices, in particular not requiring the word 'global' in front of 'climate change' led to our discovery of many sceptical papers that would not have been identified by searches only of 'global warming' and 'global climate change'. This suggests—but does not prove—that a number of sceptical papers may have been missed in the original C13 study. However, these minor disagreements aside, we are indebted to C13 for the rigor of their methodology, much of which we re-employ directly here.

4.1. Review of sceptical papers

In supplementary table 1 we present the full list of all 31 sceptical papers we found in our dataset. An in-depth evaluation of their merits is outside the scope of this paper, and could be an interesting area for further work. We note some recurring themes however, such as the hypothesis that changes in cosmic rays are significantly influencing the Earth's changes in climate, that the Sun is driving modern climate change, or that natural fluctuations are somehow involved. An additional area of research might investigate how far these themes in the published literature are reflected in popular discourse outside of the scientific community.

5. Conclusion

Our results confirm, as has been found in numerous other previous studies of this question, that there is no significant scientific debate among experts about whether or not climate change is human-caused. This issue has been comprehensively settled, and the reality of ACC is no more in contention among scientists than is plate tectonics or evolution. The tiny number of papers that have been published during our time period which disagree with this overwhelming scientific consensus have had no discernible impact, presumably because they do not provide any convincing evidence to refute the hypothesis that—in the words of IPCC AR5—'it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century' [ 12 ], and, most recently in IPCC AR6—'it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land' [ 13 ].

Our finding is that the broadly-defined scientific consensus likely far exceeds 99% regarding the role of anthropogenic GHG emissions in modern climate change, and may even be as high as 99.9%. Of course, the prevalence of mis/disinformation about the role of GHG emissions in modern climate change is unlikely to be driven purely by genuine scientific illiteracy or lack of understanding [ 14 ]. Even so, in our view it remains important to continue to inform society on the state of the evidence. According to the IPCC AR6 summary and many other previous studies, mitigating future warming requires urgent efforts to eliminate fossil fuels combustion and other major sources of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Our study helps confirm that there is no remaining scientific uncertainty about the urgency and gravity of this task.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank David Colquhoun for helpful discussions about the statistical methodology. We would also like to thank John Cook for useful comments on an early draft, and Sarah Evanega at the Alliance for Science. Support for the Alliance for Science is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Data availability statement

All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any supplementary files).

Author contributions

M L conceived the paper. S P wrote software and algorithms for data extraction and performed data analysis. M L performed ratings and categorizations. B H, S P and M L wrote the paper.

Supplementary information

Random sample of 3000 papers

Initial data with random order added.xlsx

wordAnalysis-flagged

Studies predicted to be sceptical by manually selected predictive keywords

Scientific Consensus

It’s important to remember that scientists always focus on the evidence, not on opinions. Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities ( primarily the human burning of fossil fuels ) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth’s climate . This is based on over a century of scientific evidence forming the structural backbone of today's civilization.

NASA Global Climate Change presents the state of scientific knowledge about climate change while highlighting the role NASA plays in better understanding our home planet. This effort includes citing multiple peer-reviewed studies from research groups across the world, 1 illustrating the accuracy and consensus of research results (in this case, the scientific consensus on climate change) consistent with NASA’s scientific research portfolio.

With that said, multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals 1 show that climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources.

American Scientific Societies

Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations.

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (2009) 2

American Association for the Advancement of Science

"Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening." (2014) 3

American Chemical Society

"The Earth’s climate is changing in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate matter in the atmosphere, largely as the result of human activities." (2016-2019) 4

American Geophysical Union

"Based on extensive scientific evidence, it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. There is no alterative explanation supported by convincing evidence." (2019) 5

American Medical Association

"Our AMA ... supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant." (2019) 6

American Meteorological Society

"Research has found a human influence on the climate of the past several decades ... The IPCC (2013), USGCRP (2017), and USGCRP (2018) indicate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century." (2019) 7

American Physical Society

"Earth's changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions around the globe. While natural sources of climate variability are significant, multiple lines of evidence indicate that human influences have had an increasingly dominant effect on global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century." (2015) 8

The Geological Society of America

"The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2011), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (Melillo et al., 2014) that global climate has warmed in response to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases ... Human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) are the dominant cause of the rapid warming since the middle 1900s (IPCC, 2013)." (2015) 9

Science Academies

International academies: joint statement.

"Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001)." (2005, 11 international science academies) 1 0

U.S. National Academy of Sciences

"Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions." 1 1

U.S. Government Agencies

U.s. global change research program.

"Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities." (2018, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies) 12

Intergovernmental Bodies

Intergovernmental panel on climate change.

“It is unequivocal that the increase of CO 2 , methane, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere over the industrial era is the result of human activities and that human influence is the principal driver of many changes observed across the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere. “Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact.” 1 3-17

Other Resources

List of worldwide scientific organizations.

The following page lists the nearly 200 worldwide scientific organizations that hold the position that climate change has been caused by human action. http://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html

U.S. Agencies

The following page contains information on what federal agencies are doing to adapt to climate change. https://www.c2es.org/site/assets/uploads/2012/02/climate-change-adaptation-what-federal-agencies-are-doing.pdf

Technically, a “consensus” is a general agreement of opinion, but the scientific method steers us away from this to an objective framework. In science, facts or observations are explained by a hypothesis (a statement of a possible explanation for some natural phenomenon), which can then be tested and retested until it is refuted (or disproved).

As scientists gather more observations, they will build off one explanation and add details to complete the picture. Eventually, a group of hypotheses might be integrated and generalized into a scientific theory, a scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.

1. K. Myers, et al, "Consensus revisited: quantifying scientific agreement on climate change and climate expertise among Earth scientists 10 years later", Environmental Research Letters Vol.16 No. 10, 104030 (20 October 2021); DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/ac2774 M. Lynas, et al, "Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature", Environmental Research Letters Vol.16 No. 11, 114005 (19 October 2021); DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 J. Cook et al., "Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming", Environmental Research Letters Vol. 11 No. 4, (13 April 2016); DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 J. Cook et al., "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature", Environmental Research Letters Vol. 8 No. 2, (15 May 2013); DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 W. R. L. Anderegg, “Expert Credibility in Climate Change”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 107 No. 27, 12107-12109 (21 June 2010); DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107 P. T. Doran & M. K. Zimmerman, "Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change", Eos Transactions American Geophysical Union Vol. 90 Issue 3 (2009), 22; DOI: 10.1029/2009EO030002 N. Oreskes, “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change”, Science Vol. 306 no. 5702, p. 1686 (3 December 2004); DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618

2. Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations (2009)

3. AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change (2014)

4. ACS Public Policy Statement: Climate Change (2016-2019)

5. Society Must Address the Growing Climate Crisis Now (2019)

6. Global Climate Change and Human Health (2019)

7. Climate Change: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society (2019)

8. American Physical Society (2021)

9. GSA Position Statement on Climate Change (2015)

10. Joint science academies' statement: Global response to climate change (2005)

11. Climate at the National Academies

12. Fourth National Climate Assessment: Volume II (2018)

13. IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers, SPM 1.1 (2014)

14. IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers, SPM 1 (2014)

15. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group 1 (2021)

16. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group 2 (2022)

17. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group 3 (2022)

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Facts About Earth

Chapter 3: Human Influence on the Climate System

Coordinating Lead Authors:

Veronika Eyring (Germany) and Nathan P. Gillett (Canada)

Lead Authors:

Krishna M. Achuta Rao (India), Rondrotiana Barimalala (South Africa/Madagascar), Marcelo Barreiro Parrillo (Uruguay), Nicolas Bellouin (United Kingdom/France), Christophe Cassou (France), Paul J. Durack (United States of America/Australia), Yu Kosaka (Japan), Shayne McGregor (Australia), Seung-Ki Min (Republic of Korea), Olaf Morgenstern (New Zealand/Germany), Ying Sun (China)

Contributing Authors:

Lisa Bock (Germany), Elizaveta Malinina (Canada/Russian Federation), Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir (Iceland), Jonathan L. Bamber (United Kingdom), Chris Brierley (United Kingdom), Lee de Mora (United Kingdom), John P. Dunne (United States of America), John C. Fyfe (Canada), Peter J. Gleckler (United States of America), Peter Greve (Austria/Germany), Lukas Gudmundsson (Switzerland/Germany, Iceland), Karsten Haustein (United Kingdom, Germany/Germany), Ed Hawkins (United Kingdom), Benjamin J. Henley (Australia), Marika M. Holland (United States of America), Chris Huntingford (United Kingdom), Colin Jones (United Kingdom), Masa Kageyama (France), Rémi Kazeroni (Germany/France), Yeon-Hee Kim (Republic of Korea), Charles Koven (United States of America), Gerhard Krinner (France/Germany, France), Eunice Lo (United Kingdom/China), Daniel J. Lunt (United Kingdom), Sophie Nowicki (United States of America/France, United States of America), Adam S. Phillips (United States of America), Valeriu Predoi (United Kingdom), Krishnan Raghavan (India), Malcolm J. Roberts (United Kingdom), Jon Robson (United Kingdom), Lucas Ruiz (Argentina), Jean-Baptiste Sallée (France), Benjamin D. Santer (United States of America), Andrew P. Schurer (United Kingdom), Jessica Tierney (United States of America), Blair Trewin (Australia), Katja Weigel (Germany), Xuebin Zhang (Canada), Anni Zhao (United Kingdom/China), Tianjun Zhou (China)

Review Editors:

Tomas Halenka (Czech Republic), Jose A. Marengo Orsini (Brazil/Peru), Daniel Mitchell (United Kingdom)

Chapter Scientists:

Lisa Bock (Germany), Elizaveta Malinina (Canada/Russian Federation)

Figure 3.10

Figure 3.11

Figure 3.12

Figure 3.13

Figure 3.14

Figure 3.15

Figure 3.16

Figure 3.17

Figure 3.18

Figure 3.19

Figure 3.20

Figure 3.21

Figure 3.22

Figure 3.23

Figure 3.24

Figure 3.25

Figure 3.26

Figure 3.27

Figure 3.28

Figure 3.29

Figure 3.30

Figure 3.31

Figure 3.32

Figure 3.33

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Figure 3.35

Figure 3.36

Figure 3.37

Figure 3.38

Figure 3.39

Figure 3.40

Figure 3.41

Figure 3.42

Figure 3.43

Figure 3.44

Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1

Cross-Chapter Box 3.2, Figure 1

FAQ 3.1 Figure 1

FAQ 3.2, Figure 1

FAQ 3.3, Figure 1

This chapter should be cited as:

Eyring, V., N.P. Gillett, K.M. Achuta Rao, R. Barimalala, M. Barreiro Parrillo, N. Bellouin, C. Cassou, P.J. Durack, Y. Kosaka, S. McGregor, S. Min, O. Morgenstern, and Y. Sun, 2021: Human Influence on the Climate System. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 423–552, doi: 10.1017/9781009157896.005 .

Executive Summary Expand section

The evidence for human influence on recent climate change strengthened from the IPCC Second Assessment Report to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, and is now even stronger in this assessment. The IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR, 1995) concluded ‘the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate’. In subsequent assessments (TAR, 2001; AR4, 2007; and AR5, 2013), the evidence for human influence on the climate system was found to have progressively strengthened. The AR5 concluded that human influence on the climate system is clear, evident from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and physical understanding of the climate system. This chapter updates the assessment of human influence on the climate system for large-scale indicators of climate change, synthesizing information from paleo records, observations and climate models. It also provides the primary evaluation of large-scale indicators of climate change in this Report, complemented by fitness-for-purpose evaluation in subsequent chapters.

Synthesis Across the Climate System

It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land since pre-industrial times. Combining the evidence from across the climate system increases the level of confidence in the attribution of observed climate change to human influence and reduces the uncertainties associated with assessments based on single variables. Large-scale indicators of climate change in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and at the land surface show clear responses to human influence consistent with those expected based on model simulations and physical understanding. {3.8.1}

For most large-scale indicators of climate change, the simulated recent mean climate from the latest generation Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) climate models underpinning this assessment has improved compared to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models assessed in AR5 ( high confidence ). Some differences from observations remain, for example in regional precipitation patterns. High-resolution models exhibit reduced biases in some but not all aspects of surface and ocean climate ( medium confidence ), and most Earth system models, which include biogeochemical feedbacks, perform as well as their lower-complexity counterparts ( medium confidence ). The multi-model mean captures most aspects of observed climate change well ( high confidence ). The multi-model mean captures the proxy-reconstructed global-mean surface air temperature (GSAT) change during past high- and low-CO 2 climates ( high confidence ) and the correct sign of temperature and precipitation change in most assessed regions in the mid-Holocene ( medium confidence ). The simulation of paleoclimates on continental scales has improved compared to AR5 ( medium confidence ), but models often underestimate large temperature and precipitation differences relative to the present day ( high confidence ). {3.8.2}

Human Influence on the Atmosphere and Surface

The likely range of human-induced warming in glo bal-me an surface air temperature (GSAT) in 201 0 –2019 relative to 185 0 –19 00 is 0.8°C–1.3°C, encompassing the observed warming of 0.9°C–1.2°C, while the change attributable to natural forcings is only −0.1°C to +0.1°C. The best estimate of human-induced warming is 1.07°C. Warming can now be attributed since 1850–1900, instead of since 1951 as done in AR5, thanks to a better understanding of uncertainties and because observed warming is larger. The likely ranges for human-induced GSAT and global mean surface temperature (GMST) warming are equal ( medium confidence ). Attributing observed warming to specific anthropogenic forcings remains more uncertain. Over the same period, forcing from greenhouse gases 1 likely increased GSAT by 1.0°C–2.0°C, while other anthropogenic forcings including aerosols likely decreased GSAT by 0.0°C–0.8°C. It is very likely that human-induced greenhouse gas increases were the main driver 2 of tropospheric warming since comprehensive satellite observations started in 1979, and extremely likely that human-induced stratospheric ozone depletion was the main driver of cooling in the lower stratosphere between 1979 and the mid-1990s. {3.3.1}

The CMIP6 model ensemble reproduces the observed historical global surface temperature trend and variability with biases small enough to support detection and attribution of hu man-in duced warming ( very high confidence ). The CMIP6 historical simulations assessed in this report have an ensemble mean global surface temperature change within 0.2°C of the observations over most of the historical period, and observed warming is within the 5–95% range of the CMIP6 ensemble. However, some CMIP6 models simulate a warming that is either above or below the assessed 5–95% range of observed warming. CMIP6 models broadly reproduce surface temperature variations over the past millennium, including the cooling that follows periods of intense volcanism ( medium confidence ). For upper air temperature, there is medium confidence that most CMIP5 and CMIP6 models overestimate observed warming in the upper tropical troposphere by at least 0.1°C per decade over the period 1979 to 2014. The latest updates to satellite-derived estimates of stratospheric temperature have resulted in decreased differences between simulated and observed changes of global mean temperature through the depth of the stratosphere ( medium confidence ). {3.3.1}

The slower rate of GMST increase observed over 1998–2012 compared to 1951–2012 was a temporary event followed by a strong GMST increase ( very high confidence ). Improved observational datasets since AR5 show a larger GMST trend over 1998–2012 than earlier estimates. All the observed estimates of the 1998–2012 GMST trend lie within the 10th–90th percentile range of CMIP6 simulated trends ( high confidence ). Internal variability, particularly Pacific Decadal Variability, and variations in solar and volcanic forcings partly offset the anthropogenic surface warming trend over the 1998–2012 period ( high confidence ). Global ocean heat content continued to increase throughout this period, indicating continuous warming of the entire climate system ( very high confidence ). Since 2012, GMST has warmed strongly, with the past five years (2016–2020) being the warmest five-year period in the instrumental record since at least 1850 ( high confidence ). {Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, 3.3.1; 3.5.1}

It is likely that human influence has contributed to 3 moistening in the upper troposphere since 1979. Also, there is medium confidence that human influence contributed to a global increase in annual surface specific humidity, and medium confidence that it contributed to a decrease in surface relative humidity over mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere continents during summertime. {3.3.2}

It is likely that human influence has contributed to observed large-scale precipitation changes since the mid-20th century. New attribution studies strengthen previous findings of a detectable increase in Northern Hemisphere mid- to high-latitude land precipitation ( high confidence ). Human influence has contributed to strengthening the zonal mean precipitation contrast between the wet tropics and dry subtropics ( medium confidence ). Yet, anthropogenic aerosols contributed to decreasing global land summer monsoon precipitation from the 1950s to 1980s ( medium confidence ). There is also medium confidence that human influence has contributed to high-latitude increases and mid-latitude decreases in Southern Hemisphere summertime precipitation since 1979 associated with the trend of the Southern Annular Mode toward its positive phase. Despite improvements, models still have deficiencies in simulating precipitation patterns, particularly over the tropical ocean ( high confidence ). {3.3.2, 3.3.3, 3.5.2}

Human-induced greenhouse gas forcing is the main driver of the observed changes in hot and cold extremes on the global scale ( virtually certain ) and on most continents ( very likely ). It is likely that human influence, in particular due to greenhouse gas forcing, is the main driver of the observed intensification of heavy precipitation in global land regions during recent decades. There is high confidence in the ability of models to capture the large-scale spatial distribution of precipitation extremes over land. The magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation simulated by CMIP6 models are similar to those simulated by CMIP5 models ( high confidence ). {Cross-Chapter Box 3.2}

It is likely that human influence has contributed to the poleward expansion of the zonal mean Hadley cell in the Southern Hemisphere since the 1980s. There is medium confidence that the observed poleward expansion of the zonal mean Hadley cell in the Northern Hemisphere is within the range of internal variability. The causes of the observed strengthening of the Pacific Walker circulation since the 1980s are not well understood, and the observed strengthening trend is outside the range of trends simulated in the coupled models ( medium confidence ). While CMIP6 models capture the general characteristics of the tropospheric large-scale circulation ( high confidence ), systematic biases exist in the mean frequency of atmospheric blocking events, especially in the Euro-Atlantic sector, some of which reduce with increasing model resolution ( medium confidence ). {3.3.3}

Human Influence on the Cryosphere

It is very likely that anthropogenic forcing, mainly due to greenhouse gas increases, was the main driver of Arctic sea ice loss since the late 1970s. There is new evidence that increases in anthropogenic aerosols have offset part of the greenhouse gas-induced Arctic sea ice loss since the 1950s ( medium confidence ). In the Arctic, despite large differences in the mean sea ice state, loss of sea ice extent and thickness during recent decades is reproduced in all CMIP5 and CMIP6 models ( high confidence ). By contrast, global climate models do not generally capture the small observed increase in Antarctic sea ice extent during the satellite era, and there is low confidence in attributing the causes of this change. {3.4.1}

It is very likely that human influence contributed to the observed reductions in Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover since 1950. The seasonal cycle in Northern Hemisphere snow cover is better reproduced by CMIP6 than by CMIP5 models ( high confidence ). Human influence was very likely the main driver of the recent global, near-universal retreat of glaciers. It is very likely that human influence has contributed to the observed surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet over the past two decades, and there is medium confidence in an anthropogenic contribution to recent overall mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet. However, there is only limited evidence , with medium agreement , of human influence on Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance through changes in ice discharge. {3.4.2, 3.4.3}

Human Influence on the Ocean

It is extremely likely that human influence was the main driver of the ocean heat content increase observed since the 1970s, which extends into the deeper ocean ( very high confidence ). Since AR5, there is improved consistency between recent observed estimates and model simulations of changes in upper (<700 m) ocean heat content, when accounting for both natural and anthropogenic forcings. Updated observations and model simulations show that warming extends throughout the entire water column ( high confidence ), with CMIP6 models simulating 58% of industrial-era heat uptake (1850–2014) in the upper layer (0–700 m), 21% in the intermediate layer (700–2000 m) and 22% in the deep layer (>2000 m). The structure and magnitude of multi-model mean ocean temperature biases have not changed substantially between CMIP5 and CMIP6 ( medium confidence ). {3.5.1}

It is extremely likely that human influence has contributed to observed near-surface and subsurface ocean salinity changes since the mid-20th century. The associated pattern of change corresponds to fresh regions becoming fresher and salty regions becoming saltier ( high confidence ). Changes to the coincident atmospheric water cycle and ocean-atmosphere fluxes (evaporation and precipitation) are the primary drivers of the observed basin-scale salinity changes ( high confidence ). The observed depth-integrated basin-scale salinity changes have been attributed to human influence, with CMIP5 and CMIP6 models able to reproduce these patterns only in simulations that include greenhouse gas increases ( medium confidence ). The basin-scale changes are consistent across models and intensify through the historical period ( high confidence ). The structure of the biases in the multi-model mean has not changed substantially between CMIP5 and CMIP6 ( medium confidence ). {3.5.2}

Combining the attributable contributions from glaciers, i ce-she et surface mass balance and thermal expansion, it is very likely that human influence was the main driver of the observed global mean sea level rise since at least 1971. Since AR5, studies have shown that simulations that exclude anthropogenic greenhouse gases are unable to capture the sea level rise due to thermal expansion (thermosteric) during the historical period and that model simulations that include all forcings (anthropogenic and natural) most closely match observed estimates. It is very likely that human influence was the main driver of the observed global mean thermosteric sea level increase since 1970. {3.5.3, 3.5.1, 3.4.3}

While observations show that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has weakened from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s ( high confidence ) and the Southern Ocean upper overturning cell has strengthened since the 1990s ( low confidence ), observational records are too short to determine the relative contributions of internal variability, natural forcing, and anthropogenic forcing to these changes ( high confidence ). No changes in Antarctic Circumpolar Current transport or meridional position have been observed. The mean zonal and overturning circulations of the Southern Ocean and the mean overturning circulation of the North Atlantic (the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, AMOC) are broadly reproduced by CMIP5 and CMIP6 models. However, biases are apparent in the modelled circulation strengths ( high confidence ) and their variability ( medium confidence ). {3.5.4}

Human Influence on the Biosphere

The main driver of the observed increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO 2 is enhanced fertilization of plant growth by the increasing concentration of atmospheric CO 2 ( medium confidence) . However, there is only low confidence that this CO 2 fertilization has also been the main driver of observed greening because land management is the dominating factor in some regions. Earth system models simulate globally averaged land carbon sinks within the range of observation-based estimates ( high confidence ), but global-scale agreement masks large regional disagreements. {3.6.1}

It is virtually certain that the uptake of anthropogenic CO 2 was the main driver of the observed acidification of the global surface open ocean. The observed increase in CO 2 concentration in the subtropical and equatorial North Atlantic since 2000 is likely associated in part with an increase in ocean temperature, a response that is consistent with the expected weakening of the ocean carbon sink with warming. Consistent with AR5 there is medium confidence that deoxygenation in the upper ocean is due in part to human influence. There is high confidence that Earth system models simulate a realistic time evolution of the global mean ocean carbon sink. {3.6.2}

Human Influence on Modes of Climate Variability

It is very likely that human influence has contributed to the observed trend towards the positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) since the 1970s and to the associated strengthening and southward shift of the Southern Hemispheric extratropical jet in austral summer. The influence of ozone forcing on the SAM trend has been small since the early 2000s compared to earlier decades, contributing to a weaker SAM trend observed over 2000–2019 ( medium confidence ). Climate models reproduce the summertime SAM trend well, with CMIP6 models outperforming CMIP5 models ( medium confidence ). By contrast, the cause of the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) trend towards its positive phase since the 1960s and associated northward shifts of the Northern Hemispheric extratropical jet and storm track in boreal winter is not well understood. Models reproduce the observed spatial features and variance of the SAM and NAM very well ( high confidence ). {3.3.3, 3.7.1, 3.7.2}

Human influence has not affected the principal tropical modes of interannual climate variability or their associated regional teleconnections beyond the range of internal variability ( high confidence ). Further assessment since AR5 confirms that climate and Earth system models are able to reproduce most aspects of the spatial structure and variance of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Basin and Dipole modes ( medium confidence ). However, despite a slight improvement in CMIP6, some underlying processes are still poorly represented. In the Tropical Atlantic basin, which contains the Atlantic Zonal and Meridional modes, major biases in modelled mean state and variability remain. {3.7.3 to 3.7.5}

There is medium confidence that anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols contributed to observed changes in the Atlantic Multi-decadal Variability (AMV) index and associated regional teleconnections since the 1960s, but there is low confidence in the magnitude of this influence. There is high confidence that internal variability is the main driver of Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV) observed since pre-industrial times, despite some modelling evidence for potential human influence. Uncertainties remain in quantification of the human influence on AMV and PDV due to brevity of the observational records, limited model performance in reproducing related sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies despite improvements from CMIP5 to CMIP6 ( medium confidence ), and limited process understanding of their key drivers. {3.7.6, 3.7.7}

3.1 Scope and Overview

This chapter assesses the extent to which the climate system has been affected by human influence and to what extent climate models are able to simulate observed mean climate, changes and variability. This assessment is the basis for understanding what impacts of anthropogenic climate change may already be occurring and informs our confidence in climate projections. Moreover, an understanding of the amount of human-induced global warming to date is key to assessing our status with respect to the Paris Agreement goals of holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C ( UNFCCC, 2016 ).

The evidence of human influence on the climate system has strengthened progressively over the course of the previous five IPCC assessments, from the Second Assessment Report that concluded ‘the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on climate’ through to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) which concluded that ‘it is extremely likely that human influence caused more than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) from 1951 to 2010’ (see also Sections 1.3.4 and 3.3.1.1). The AR5 concluded that climate models had been developed and improved since the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) and were able to reproduce many features of observed climate. Nonetheless, several systematic biases were identified ( Flato et al., 2013 ). This chapter additionally builds on the assessment of attribution of global temperatures contained in the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5; IPCC, 2018 ), assessments of attribution of changes in the ocean and cryosphere in the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC; IPCC, 2019b ), and assessments of attribution of changes in the terrestrial carbon cycle in the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL, IPCC, 2019a ).

This chapter assesses the evidence for human influence on observed large-scale indicators of climate change that are described in Cross-Chapter Box 2.2 and assessed in Chapter 2. It takes advantage of the longer period of record now available in many observational datasets. The assessment of the human-induced contribution to observed climate change requires an estimate of the expected response to human influence, as well as an estimate of the expected climate evolution due to natural forcings and an estimate of variability internal to the climate system (internal climate variability). For this we need high quality models, primarily climate and Earth system models. Since AR5, a new set of coordinated model results from the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6; Eyring et al., 2016a ) has become available. Together with updated observations of large-scale indicators of climate change (Chapter 2), CMIP simulations are a key resource for assessing human influence on the climate system. Pre-industrial control and historical simulations are of most relevance for model evaluation and assessment of internal variability, and these simulations are evaluated to assess fitness-for-purpose for attribution, which is the focus of this chapter (see also ( Section 1.5.4 ). This chapter provides the primary evaluation of large-scale indicators of climate change in this Report, and is complemented by other fitness-for-purpose evaluations in subsequent chapters. CMIP6 also includes an extensive set of idealized and single forcing experiments for attribution ( Eyring et al., 2016a ; Gillett et al., 2016 ). In addition to the assessment of model performance and human influence on the climate system during the instrumental era up to the present-day, this chapter also includes evidence from paleo-observations and simulations over past millennia ( Kageyama et al., 2018 ).

Whereas in previous IPCC assessment reports the comparison of simulated and observed climate change was done separately in a model evaluation chapter and a chapter on detection and attribution, in AR6 these comparisons are integrated together. This has the advantage of allowing a single discussion of the full set of explanations for any inconsistency in simulated and observed climate change, including missing forcings, errors in the simulated response to forcings, and observational errors, as well as an assessment of the application of detection and attribution techniques to model evaluation. Where simulated and observed changes are consistent, this can be interpreted both as supporting attribution statements, and as giving confidence in simulated future change in the variable concerned (see also Box 4.1). However, if a model’s simulation of historical climate change has been tuned to agree with observations, or if the models used in an attribution study have been selected or weighted on the basis of the realism of their simulated climate response, this information would need to be considered in the assessment and any attribution results correspondingly tempered. An integrated discussion of evaluation and attribution supports such a robust and transparent assessment.

3.2 Methods

New methods for model evaluation that are used in this chapter are described in Section 1.5.4 . These include new techniques for process-based evaluation of climate and Earth system models against observations that have rapidly advanced since the publication of AR5 ( Eyring et al., 2019 ) as well as newly developed CMIP evaluation tools that allow a more rapid and comprehensive evaluation of the models with observations ( Eyring et al., 2016a , b).

In this chapter, we use the Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool, Eyring et al., 2020 ; Lauer et al., 2020 ; Righi et al., 2020 ) and the NCAR Climate Variability Diagnostic Package (CVDP, Phillips et al., 2014 ) that is included in the ESMValTool to produce most of the figures. This ensures traceability of the results and provides an additional level of quality control. The ESMValTool code to produce the figures in this chapter was released as open source software at the time of the publication of this Report (see details in the Chapter Data Table, Table SM.3.1). Figures in this chapter are produced either using one ensemble member from each model, or using all available ensemble members and weighting each simulation by 1/( NM i ), where N is the number of models and M i is the ensemble size of the i th model, prior to calculating means and percentiles. Both approaches ensure that each model used is given equal weight in the figures, and details on which approach is used are provided in the figure captions.

An introduction to recent developments in detection and attribution methods in the context of this Report is provided in the Cross-Working Group Box on Attribution in Chapter 1. Here we discuss new methods and improvements applicable to the attribution of changes in large-scale indicators of climate change which are used in this chapter.

3.2.1 Methods Based on Regression

Regression-based methods, also known as fingerprinting methods, have been widely used for detection of climate change and attribution of the change to different external drivers. Initially, these methods were applied to detect changes in global surface temperature, and were then extended to other climate variables at different time and spatial scales (e.g., Hegerl et al., 1996 ; Hasselmann, 1997 ; Allen and Tett, 1999 ; Gillett et al., 2003b ; Zhang et al., 2007 ; Min et al., 2008a , 2011). These approaches are based on multivariate linear regression and assume that the observed change consists of a linear combination of externally forced signals plus internal variability, which generally holds for large-scale variables ( Hegerl and Zwiers, 2011 ). The regressors are the expected space–time response patterns to different climate forcings (fingerprints), and the residuals represent internal variability. Fingerprints are usually estimated from climate model simulations following spatial and temporal averaging. A regression coefficient which is significantly greater than zero implies that a detectable change is identified in the observations. When the confidence interval of the regression coefficient includes unity and is inconsistent with zero, the magnitude of the model simulated fingerprints is assessed to be consistent with the observations, implying that the observed changes can be attributed in part to a particular forcing. Variants of linear regression have been used to address uncertainty in the fingerprints due to internal variability ( Allen and Stott, 2003 ) as well as structural model uncertainty ( Huntingford et al., 2006 ).

In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, observations and model-simulated responses are usually normalized by an estimate of internal variability derived from climate model simulations. This procedure requires an estimate of the inverse covariance matrix of the internal variability, and some approaches have been proposed for more reliable estimation of this ( Ribes et al., 2009 ). A signal can be spuriously detected due to too-small noise, and hence simulated internal variability needs to be evaluated with care. Model-simulated variability is typically checked through comparing modelled variance from unforced simulations with the observed residual variance using a standard residual consistency test ( Allen and Tett, 1999 ), or an improved one ( Ribes and Terray, 2013 ). Imbers et al. (2014) tested the sensitivity of detection and attribution results to different representations of internal variability associated with short-memory and long-memory processes. Their results supported the robustness of previous detection and attribution statements for the global mean temperature change but they also recommended the use of a wider variety of robustness tests.

Some recent studies focused on the improved estimation of the scaling factor (regression coefficient) and its confidence interval. Hannart et al. (2014) described an inference procedure for scaling factors which avoids making the assumption that model error and internal variability have the same covariance structure. An integrated approach to optimal fingerprinting was further suggested in which all uncertainty sources (i.e., observational error, model error, and internal variability) are treated in one statistical model without a preliminary dimension reduction step ( Hannart, 2016 ). Katzfuss et al. (2017) introduced a similar integrated approach based on a Bayesian model averaging. On the other hand, DelSole et al. (2019) suggested a bootstrap method to better estimate the confidence intervals of scaling factors even in a weak-signal regime. It is notable that some studies do not optimize fingerprints, as uncertainty in the covariance introduces a further layer of complexity, but results in only a limited improvement in detection ( Polson and Hegerl, 2017 ).

Another fingerprinting approach uses pattern similarity between observations and fingerprints, in which the leading empirical orthogonal function obtained from the time-evolving multi-model forced simulation is usually defined as a fingerprint (e.g., Santer et al., 2013 ; Marvel et al., 2019 ; Bonfils et al., 2020 ). Observations and model simulations are then projected onto the fingerprint to measure the degree of spatial pattern similarity with the expected physical response to a given forcing. This projection provides the signal time series, which is in turn tested against internal variability, as estimated from long control simulations. As a way to extend this pattern-based approach to a high-dimensional detection variable at daily time scales, Sippel et al. (2019, 2020) proposed using the relationship pattern with a global climate change metric as a fingerprint. To solve the high-dimensional regression problem which makes regression coefficients not well constrained, they incorporated a statistical learning technique based on a regularized linear regression, which optimizes a global warming signal by giving lower weight to regions with large internal variability.

3.2.2 Other Probabilistic Approaches

Considering the difficulty in accounting for climate modelling uncertainties in the regression-based approaches, Ribes et al. (2017) introduced a new statistical inference framework based on an additivity assumption and likelihood maximization, which estimates climate model uncertainty based on an ensemble of opportunity and tests whether observations are inconsistent with internal variability and consistent with the expected response from climate models. The method was further developed by Ribes et al. (2021) , who applied it to narrow the uncertainty range in the estimated human-induced warming. Hannart and Naveau (2018) , on the other hand, extended the application of standard causal theory ( Pearl, 2009 ) to the context of detection and attribution by converting a time series into an event, and calculating the probability of causation, an approach which maximizes the causal evidence associated with the forcing. On the other hand, Schurer et al. (2018) employed a Bayesian framework to explicitly consider climate modelling uncertainty in the optimal regression method. Application of these approaches to attribution of large-scale temperature changes supports a dominant anthropogenic contribution to the observed global warming.

Climate change signals can vary with time and discriminant analysis has been used to obtain more accurate estimates of time-varying signals, and has been applied to different variables such as seasonal temperatures ( Jia and DelSole, 2012 ) and the South Asian monsoon ( Srivastava and DelSole, 2014 ). The same approach was applied to separate aerosol forcing responses from other forcings (X. Yan et al., 2016 ) and results using climate model output indicated that detectability of the aerosol response is maximized by using a combination of temperature and precipitation data. Paeth et al. (2017) introduced a detection and attribution method applicable for multiple variables based on a discriminant analysis and a Bayesian classification method. Finally, a systematic approach has been proposed to translating quantitative analysis into a description of confidence in the detection and attribution of a climate response to anthropogenic drivers ( Stone and Hansen, 2016 ).

Overall, these new fingerprinting and other probabilistic methods for detection and attribution as well as efforts to better incorporate the associated uncertainties have addressed a number of shortcomings in previously applied detection and attribution techniques. They further strengthen the confidence in attribution of observed large-scale changes to a combination of external forcings as assessed in the following sections.

3.3 Human Influence on the Atmosphere and Surface Expand section

3.3.1 temperature, 3.3.1.1 surface temperature.

Surface temperature change is the aspect of climate in which the climate research community has had most confidence over past IPCC assessment reports. This confidence comes from the availability of longer observational records compared to other indicators, a large response to anthropogenic forcing compared to variability in the global mean, and a strong theoretical understanding of the key thermodynamics driving its changes ( Collins et al., 2010 ; Shepherd, 2014 ). The AR5 assessed that it was extremely likely that human activities had caused more than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature from 1951 to 2010, and virtually certain that internal variability alone could not account for the observed global warming since 1951 ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). The AR5 also assessed with very high confidence that climate models reproduce the general features of the global-scale annual mean surface temperature increase over 1850–2011 and with high confidence that models reproduce global and Northern Hemisphere temperature variability on a wide range of time scales ( Flato et al., 2013 ). This section assesses the performance of the new generation CMIP6 models (see Table AII.5) in simulating the patterns, trends, and variability of surface temperature, and the evidence from detection and attribution studies of human influence on large-scale changes in surface temperature.

3.3.1.1.1 Model evaluation

To be fit for detecting and attributing human influence on globally-averaged surface temperatures, climate models need to represent, based on physical principles, both the response of surface temperature to external forcings and the internal variability in surface temperature over various time scales. This section assesses the performance of those aspects in the latest generation CMIP6 climate models. See ( Section 3.8 for evaluation at continental scales, Chapter 10 for model evaluation in the context of regional climate information, and the Atlas for region-by-region assessments of model performance.

Although virtually all CMIP6 modelling groups report improvements in their model’s ability to simulate current climate compared to the CMIP5 version ( Gettelman et al., 2019 ; Golaz et al., 2019 ; Mauritsen et al., 2019 ; Swart et al., 2019 ; Voldoire et al., 2019b ; T. Wu et al., 2019 b; Bock et al., 2020 ; Boucher et al., 2020 ; Dunne et al., 2020 ), it does not necessarily follow that the simulation of temperature trends is also improved ( Bock et al., 2020 ; Fasullo et al., 2020 ). The CMIP6 multi-model ensemble encompasses observed warming and the multi-model mean tracks those observations within 0.2°C over most of the historical period. Figure 3.4 confirms the findings of Papalexiou et al. (2020) , who highlighted based on 29 CMIP6 models that most models replicate the period of slow warming between 1942 and 1975 and the late twentieth century warming (1975–2014). The CMIP6 multi-model mean is cooler over the period 1980–2000 than both observations and CMIP5 (Figure 3.4; Bock et al., 2020 ; Flynn and Mauritsen, 2020 ; Gillett et al., 2021 ). Biases of several tenths of a degree in some CMIP6 models over that period may be due to an overestimate in aerosol radiative forcing (Sections 6.3.5 and 7.3.3, and Figure 6.8; Andrews et al., 2020 ; Dittus et al., 2020 ; Flynn and Mauritsen, 2020 ). Papalexiou et al. (2020) , Tokarska et al. (2020) and Stolpe et al. (2021) all report that CMIP6 models on average overestimate warming from the 1970s or 1980s to the 2010s, although quantitative conclusions depend on which observational dataset is compared against (see also Table 2.4). However, Figure 3.4, which includes a larger number of models than available to those studies, indicates that the CMIP6 multi-model mean tracks observed warming better than the CMIP5 multi-model mean after the year 2000. The CMIP6 multi-model mean GSAT warming between 1850–1900 and 2010–2019 and associated 5–95% range is 1.09 [0.66 to 1.64] °C. Cross-Chapter Box 2.3 assessed GSAT warming over the same period at 1.06 [0.88 to 1.21] °C. So some CMIP6 models simulate a warming that is smaller than the assessed observed range, and other CMIP6 models simulate a warming that is larger. That overestimated warming may be an early symptom of overestimated ECS in some CMIP6 models (Section 7.5.6; Meehl et al., 2020 ; Schlund et al., 2020 ), and has implications for projections of GSAT changes (Chapter 4; Liang et al., 2020 ; Nijsse et al., 2020 ; Tokarska et al., 2020 ; Ribes et al., 2021 ). In some models, a large ECS and a strong aerosol forcing lead to too large a mid-20th century cooling followed by overestimated warming rates in the late 20th century when aerosol emissions decrease ( Golaz et al., 2019 ; Flynn and Mauritsen, 2020 ). Temperature biases are driven by both model physics and prescribed forcing, which is a challenge for model development.

Chylek et al. (2020) argue that CMIP5 models overestimate the temperature response to volcanic eruptions. Lehner et al. (2016) , Rypdal (2018) and Stolpe et al. (2021) point instead to missed compensating effects on surface temperature change associated with internal variability in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). An alternative view sees those ENSO and AMO responses as expressions of changes in climate feedbacks driven by the geographical pattern of SST changes ( Andrews et al., 2018 ). At least one model is able to reproduce such pattern effects ( Gregory and Andrews, 2016 ). Errors in the volcanic forcing prescribed in simulations, including for CMIP6 ( Rieger et al., 2020 ), also introduce differences with the observed temperature response, independently of the quality of the model physics. In addition, comparisons of the modelled temperature response to large eruptions over the past millennium to temperature reconstructions based on tree rings show a much better agreement ( Lücke et al., 2019 ; F. Zhu et al., 2020 ) than comparisons to the annual, multi-temperature proxy reconstructions shown in Figure 3.2c. These considerations, and Figures 3.2c and 3.4, suggest that CMIP6 models do not systematically overestimate the cooling that follows large volcanic eruptions (see also Cross-Chapter Box 4.1).

When interpreting model simulations of historical temperature change, it is important to keep in mind that some models are tuned towards representing the observed trend in global mean surface temperature over the historical period ( Hourdin et al., 2017 ). In Figure 3.4 the CMIP6 models that are documented to have been tuned to reproduce observed warming, typically by tuning aerosol forcing or factors that influence the model’s ECS, are marked with an asterisk. Such tuning of a model can strongly impact its temperature projections ( Mauritsen and Roeckner, 2020 ). However, Bock et al. (2020) reported that there is no statistically significant difference in multi-model mean GSAT between the models that had been tuned based on observed warming compared to those which had not. Moreover, only two of thirteen models used for the Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project (DAMIP) simulations on which CMIP6 attribution studies are based were tuned towards historical warming ( Bock et al., 2020 ; Gillett et al., 2021 ). Further, tuning is done on globally averaged quantities, so does not substantially change the spatio-temporal pattern of response on which many regression-based attribution studies are based ( Bock et al., 2020 ). Therefore, we assess with high confidence that the tuning of a small number of CMIP6 models to observed warming has not substantially influenced attribution results assessed in this chapter.

The reliance of detection and attribution studies on climate models (see Section 3.2 ) requires that those models simulate realistic statistics of internal variability on multi-decadal time scales. An incorrect estimate of variability in models would affect confidence in the conclusions from detection and attribution. The AR5 found that CMIP5 models simulate realistic variability in global-mean surface temperature on decadal time scales, with variability on multi-decadal time scales being more difficult to evaluate because of the short observational record ( Flato et al., 2013 ). Since AR5, new work has characterized the contributions of variability in different ocean areas to SST variability, with tropical modes of variability like ENSO dominant on time scales of five to ten years, while longer time scales see the variance maxima move poleward to the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Southern oceans ( Monselesan et al., 2015 ). There may, however, be sizeable, two-way interdependencies between ENSO and sea surface temperature variability in different basins ( Kumar et al., 2014 ; Cai et al., 2019 ), and ENSO’s influence on global surface temperature variability may not be confined only to decadal time scales ( Triacca et al., 2014 ). Studies based on large ensembles of 20th and 21st century climate change simulations confirm that internal variability has a substantial influence on global warming trends over periods shorter than 30–40 years ( Kay et al., 2015 ; Dai and Bloecker, 2019 ). Although the equatorial Pacific seems to be the main source of internal variability on decadal time scales, Brown et al. (2016a) linked diversity in modelled oceanic convection, sea ice, and energy budget in high-latitude regions to overall diversity in modelled internal variability.

Interest in internal variability since the publication of AR5 stems in part from its importance in understanding the slower global surface temperature warming over the early 21st century (see Cross-Chapter Box 3.1). Evidence coming mostly from paleo studies is mixed on whether CMIP5 models underestimate decadal and multi-decadal variability in global mean temperature. Schurer et al. (2013) found good agreement between internal variability derived from paleo reconstructions, estimated as the fraction of variance that is not explained by forced responses, and modelled variability, although the subset of CMIP5 models they used may have been associated with larger variability than the full CMIP5 ensemble. PAGES 2k Consortium (2019) found that the largest 51-year trends in both reconstructions of global mean temperature and fully forced climate simulations over the period 850 to 1850 were almost identical. Zhu et al. (2019) showed agreement in the modelled and reconstructed temporal spectrum of global surface temperatures on annual to multi-millennial time scales. However, they suggest that decadal- to centennial variability is partly forced by slow orbital changes that predate the last millennium. This is consistent with Gebbie and Huybers (2019) , who showed that the deep ocean has been out of equilibrium over that period. Laepple and Huybers (2014) found good agreement between modelled and proxy-derived decadal ocean temperature variability, but underestimates of variance by models by at least a factor of ten at centennial time scales because models underestimate the difference between the warm and cold periods of the last millennium. Parsons et al. (2020) found that some CMIP6 models exhibit much higher multi-decadal variability in GSAT than CMIP5 models, with indications that variability in these models is also higher than that from proxy reconstructions. CMIP6 models may not share the underestimation by CMIP5 models of variability in decadal to multi-decadal modes of variability, such as Pacific Decadal Variability ( Section 3.7.6 ; England et al., 2014 ; Thompson et al., 2014 ; Schurer et al., 2015 ) and Atlantic Multi-decadal Variability (AMV), which may be partly forced, (see Section 3.7.7 ) but this assessment is limited by the small number of available studies. For the Southern Hemisphere, Hegerl et al. (2018) found an instance of internal variability in the early 20th century larger than that modelled, but indicated that could be an observational issue. Friedman et al. (2020) found biases in interhemispheric SST contrast in some models that may be consistent with underestimated cooling after early-20th century eruptions or underestimated Pacific Decadal Variability, but could also be due to an imperfect separation between internal variability and forced signal in the observations. Figure 3.2c, updated from PAGES 2k Consortium (2019) , compares modelled temperatures to reconstructions over the last millennium. It indicates that models reproduce the observed variability well, at least for the time scales between 20 and 50 years that paleo reconstructions typically resolve and that the figure represents. In summary, decadal GMST variability simulated in CMIP6 models spans the range of residual decadal variability in large-scale reconstructions ( medium evidence , low agreement ).

In addition, new literature suggests that anthropogenic forcing itself may locally increase or decrease variability in surface temperatures ( Screen et al., 2014 ; Qian and Zhang, 2015 ; Brown et al., 2017 ; Park et al., 2018 ; Santer et al., 2018 ; Weller et al., 2020 ). These studies imply limitations in the use of pre-industrial control simulations to quantify the role of unforced variability over the historical period. Some recent attribution studies ( Gillett et al., 2021 ; Ribes et al., 2021 ) have estimated variability from ensembles of forced simulations instead, which would be expected to resolve any such changes in variability.

In summary, there is high confidence that CMIP6 models reproduce observed large-scale mean surface temperature patterns and internal variability as well as their CMIP5 predecessors, but with little evidence for reduced biases. CMIP6 models also reproduce historical GSAT changes similarly to their CMIP5 counterparts ( medium confidence ). However, in spite of model imperfections, there is very high confidence that biases in surface temperature trends and variability simulated by the CMIP5 and CMIP6 ensembles are small enough to support detection and attribution of human-induced warming.

3.3.1.1.2 Detection and attribution

Looking at periods preceding the instrumental record, AR5 assessed with high confidence that the 20th century annual mean surface temperature warming reversed a 5000-year cooling trend in Northern Hemisphere mid- to high latitudes caused by orbital forcing, and attributed the reversal to anthropogenic forcing with high confidence (see also ( Section 2.3.1.1 ). Since AR5, the combined response to solar, volcanic and greenhouse gas forcing was detected in all Northern Hemisphere continents ( PAGES 2k-PMIP3 group, 2015 ) over the period 864 to 1840. In contrast, the effect of those forcings was not detectable in the Southern Hemisphere ( Neukom et al., 2018 ). Global and Northern Hemisphere temperature changes from reconstructions over this period have been attributed mostly to volcanic forcing ( Schurer et al., 2014 ; McGregor et al., 2015 ; Otto-Bliesner et al., 2016 ; PAGES 2k Consortium, 2019 ; Büntgen et al., 2020 ), with a smaller role for changes in greenhouse gas forcing, and solar forcing playing a minor role ( Schurer et al., 2014 ; PAGES 2k Consortium, 2019 ).

Focusing now on warming over the historical period, AR5 assessed that it was extremely likely that human influence was the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century, and that it was virtually certain that warming over the same period could not be explained by internal variability alone. Since AR5 many new attribution studies of changes in global surface temperature have focused on methodological advances (see also ( Section 3.2 ). Those advances include better accounting for observational and model uncertainties, and internal variability ( Ribes and Terray, 2013 ; Hannart, 2016 ; Ribes et al., 2017 ; Schurer et al., 2018 ); formulating the attribution problem in a counterfactual framework ( Hannart and Naveau, 2018 ); and reducing the dependence of the attribution on uncertainties in climate sensitivity and forcing ( Otto et al., 2015 ; Haustein et al., 2017 , 2019). Studies now account for uncertainties in the statistics of internal variability, either explicitly ( Hannart, 2016 ; Hannart and Naveau, 2018 ; Ribes et al., 2021 ) or implicitly ( Ribes and Terray, 2013 ; Schurer et al., 2018 ; Gillett et al., 2021 ), thus addressing concerns about over-confident attribution conclusions. Accounting for observational uncertainty increases the range of warming attributable to greenhouse gases by only 10 to 30% ( Jones and Kennedy, 2017 ; Schurer et al., 2018 ). While some attribution studies estimate attributable changes in globally-complete GSAT ( Schurer et al., 2018 ; Gillett et al., 2021 ; Ribes et al., 2021 ), others attribute changes in observational GMST, but this makes little difference to attribution conclusions ( Schurer et al., 2018 ). Moreover, based on a synthesis of observational and modelling evidence, Cross-Chapter Box 2.3 assesses that the current best estimate of the scaling factor between GMST and GSAT is one, and therefore attribution studies of GMST and GSAT are here treated together in deriving assessed warming ranges. Studies also increasingly validate their multi-model approaches using imperfect model tests ( Schurer et al., 2018 ; Gillett et al., 2021 ; Ribes et al., 2021 ). Alternative techniques, based purely on statistical or econometric approaches, without the need for climate modelling, have also been applied ( Estrada et al., 2013 ; Stern and Kaufmann, 2014 ; Dergiades et al., 2016 ) and match the results of physically-based methods. The larger range of attribution techniques and improvements to those techniques increase confidence in the results compared to AR5.

In summary, since the publication of AR5, new literature has emerged that better accounts for methodological and climate model uncertainties in attribution studies ( Ribes et al., 2017 ; Hannart and Naveau, 2018 ) and that concludes that anthropogenic warming is approximately equal to observed warming over the 1951–2010 period. The IPCC SR1.5 reached the same conclusion for 2017 relative to 1850–1900 based on anthropogenic warming and associated uncertainties calculated using the method of Haustein et al. (2017) . Moreover, the improved understanding of the causes of the apparent slowdown in warming over the beginning of the 21st century and the difference in simulated and observed warming trends over this period (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1) further improve our confidence in the assessment of the dominant anthropogenic contribution to observed warming. In deriving our assessments, these considerations are balanced against new literature that raises questions about the ability of some models to simulate variability in surface temperatures over a range of time scales ( Laepple and Huybers, 2014 ; Parsons et al., 2017 ; Friedman et al., 2020 ), and the finding that some CMIP6 models exhibit substantially higher multi-decadal internal variability than that seen in CMIP5, which remains to be fully understood ( Parsons et al., 2020 ; Ribes et al., 2021 ). Further, uncertainties in simulated aerosol-cloud interactions are still large (Section 7.3.3.2.2), resulting in very diverse spatial responses of different climate models to aerosol forcing, and inter-model differences in the historical global mean temperature evolution and in diagnosed cooling attributable to aerosols (Figure 3.8). Moreover, like previous generations of coupled model simulations, historical and single forcing CMIP6 simulations follow a common experimental design ( Eyring et al., 2016a ; Gillett et al., 2016 ) and are thus all driven by the same common set of forcings, even though these forcings are uncertain. Hence, forcing uncertainty is not directly accounted for in most of the attribution and model evaluation studies assessed here, although this limitation can to some extent be addressed by comparing with previous generation multi-model ensembles or individual model studies using different sets of forcings.

The IPCC AR5 assessed the likely range of the contribution of internal variability to GMST warming to be −0.1 to +0.1°C over the period 1951–2010. Since then, several studies have downplayed the contribution of internal modes of variability to global temperature variability, often by arguing for a forced component to those internal modes ( Mann et al., 2014 ; Folland et al., 2018 ; Haustein et al., 2019 ; Liguori et al., 2020 ). Haustein et al. (2017) found a 5–95% confidence interval of −0.09°C to +0.12°C for the contribution of internal variability to warming between 1850–1879 and 2017. Ribes et al. (2021) imply a contribution of internal variability of −0.02°C ± 0.16°C to warming between 2010–2019 and 1850–1900, assuming independence between errors in the observations and in the estimate of the forced response. Based on these studies, but allowing for unsampled sources of error, we assess the likely range of the contribution of internal variability to GSAT warming between 2010–2019 and 1850–1900 to be −0.2°C to +0.2°C.

The IPCC SR1.5 gave a likely range for the human-induced warming rate of 0.1°C to 0.3°C per decade in 2017, with a best estimate of 0.2°C per decade ( Allen et al., 2018 ). Table 3.1 lists the estimates of attributable anthropogenic warming rate over the period 2010–2019 based on the three studies that underpin the assessment of GSAT warming ( Haustein et al., 2017 ; Gillett et al., 2021 ; Ribes et al., 2021 ). Estimates from Haustein et al. (2017) , based on observed warming, and Ribes et al. (2021) , based on CMIP6 simulations constrained by observed warming, are in good agreement. The Gillett et al. (2021) estimate, also based on CMIP6 models, corresponds to a larger anthropogenic attributable warming rate, because of a smaller warming rate attributed to natural forcing than in Ribes et al. (2021) . This disagreement does not support a decrease in uncertainty compared to the SR1.5 assessment. So the range for anthropogenic attributable surface temperature warming rate of 0.1°C to 0.3°C per decade is again assessed to be likely , with a best estimate of 0.2°C per decade.

3.3.1.2 Upper-air Temperature

( Chapter 2 assessed that the troposphere has warmed since at least the 1950s, that it is virtually certain that the stratosphere has cooled, and that there is medium confidence that the upper troposphere in the tropics has warmed faster than the near-surface since at least 2001 ( Section 2.3.1.2 ). The AR5 assessed that anthropogenic forcings, dominated by greenhouse gases, likely contributed to the warming of the troposphere since 1961 and that anthropogenic forcings, dominated by the depletion of the ozone layer due to ozone-depleting substances, very likely contributed to the cooling of the lower stratosphere since 1979. Since AR5, understanding of observational uncertainties in the radiosonde and satellite data has improved with more available data and longer coverage, and differences between models and observations in the tropical atmosphere have been investigated further.

3.3.1.2.1 Tropospheric temperature

The AR5 assessed with low confidence that most, though not all, CMIP3 ( Meehl et al., 2007 ) and CMIP5 ( Taylor et al., 2012 ) models overestimated the observed warming trend in the tropical troposphere during the satellite period 1979–2012, and that a third to a half of this difference was due to an overestimate of the SST trend during this period ( Flato et al., 2013 ). Since AR5, additional studies based on CMIP5 and CMIP6 models show that this warming bias in tropospheric temperatures remains. Recent studies have investigated the role of observational uncertainty, the model response to external forcings, the influence of the time period considered, and the role of biases in SST trends in contributing to this bias.

Mitchell et al. (2013) and Mitchell et al. (2020) found a smaller discrepancy in tropical tropospheric temperature trends in models forced with observed SSTs (see also Figure 3.10a), and CMIP5 models and observations were found to be consistent below 150 hPa when viewed in terms of the ratio of temperature trends aloft to those at the surface ( Mitchell et al., 2013 ). Flannaghan et al. (2014) and Tuel (2019) showed that most of the tropospheric temperature trend difference between CMIP5 models and the satellite-based observations over the 1970–2018 period is due to respective differences in SST warming trends in regions of deep convection, and Po-Chedley et al. (2021) showed that CMIP6 models with a more realistic SST simulation in the central and eastern Pacific show a better performance than other models. Though systematic biases still remain, this indicates that the bias in tropospheric temperature warming in models is in part linked to surface temperature warming biases, especially in the lower troposphere.

In summary, studies continue to find that CMIP5 and CMIP6 model simulations warm more than observations in the tropical mid- and upper-troposphere over the 1979–2014 period ( Mitchell et al., 2013 , 2020; Santer et al., 2017a , b; Suárez-Gutiérrez et al., 2017 ; McKitrick and Christy, 2018 ), and that overestimated surface warming is partially responsible ( Mitchell et al., 2013 ; Po-Chedley et al., 2021 ). Some studies point to forcing errors in the CMIP5 simulations in the early 21st century as a possible contributor ( Mitchell et al., 2013 ; Sherwood and Nishant, 2015 ; Santer et al., 2017a ), but CMIP6 simulations use updated forcing estimates yet generally still warm more than observations. Although accounting for internal variability and residual observational errors can reconcile models with observations to some extent ( Suárez-Gutiérrez et al., 2017 ; Mitchell et al., 2020 ), some studies suggest that climate sensitivity also plays a role ( Mauritsen and Stevens, 2015 ; McKitrick and Christy, 2020 ; Po-Chedley et al., 2021 ). Hence, we assess with medium confidence that CMIP5 and CMIP6 models continue to overestimate observed warming in the upper tropical troposphere over the 1979–2014 period by at least 0.1°C per decade, in part because of an overestimate of the tropical SST trend pattern over this period.

The AR5 assessed as likely that anthropogenic forcings, dominated by greenhouse gases, contributed to the warming of the troposphere since 1961 ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). Since then, there has been further progress in detecting and attributing tropospheric temperature changes. Mitchell et al. (2020) used CMIP6 models to find that the main driver of tropospheric temperature changes is greenhouse gases. Previous detection of the anthropogenic influence on tropospheric warming may have overestimated uncertainties: Pallotta and Santer (2020) found that CMIP5 climate models overestimate the observed natural variability in global mean tropospheric temperature on time scales of 5–20 years. Nevertheless, Santer et al. (2019) found that stochastic uncertainty is greater for tropospheric warming than stratospheric cooling because of larger noise and slower recovery time from the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the troposphere. The detection time of the anthropogenic signal in the tropospheric warming can be affected by both the model climate sensitivity and the model response to aerosol forcing. Volcanic forcing is also important, as models that do not consider the influence of volcanic eruptions in the early 21st century overestimate the observed tropospheric warming since 1998 ( Santer et al., 2014 ). Changes in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of tropospheric temperatures have also been attributed to human influence. Santer et al. (2018) found that satellite data and climate models driven by anthropogenic forcing show consistent amplitude increases at mid-latitudes in both hemispheres, amplitude decreases at high latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere, and small changes in the tropics.

In summary, these studies confirm the dominant role of human activities in tropospheric temperature trends. We therefore assess that it is very likely that anthropogenic forcing, dominated by greenhouse gases, was the main driver of the warming of the troposphere since 1979.

3.3.1.2.2 Stratospheric temperature

The AR5 concluded that the CMIP5 models simulated a generally realistic evolution of lower-stratospheric temperatures ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ; Flato et al., 2013 ), which was better than that of the CMIP3 models, in part because they generally include time-varying ozone concentrations, unlike many of the CMIP3 models. Nonetheless, it was noted that there was a tendency for the simulations to underestimate stratospheric cooling compared to observations. Bindoff et al. (2013) concluded that it was very likely that anthropogenic forcing, dominated by stratospheric ozone depletion by chemical reactions involving trace species known as ozone-depleting substances (ODS), had contributed to the cooling of the lower stratosphere since 1979. Increased greenhouse gases cause near-surface warming but cooling of stratospheric temperatures.

For the lower stratosphere, a debate has been ongoing since AR5 between studies finding that models underestimate the cooling of stratospheric temperature ( Santer et al., 2017b ), in part because of underestimated stratospheric ozone depletion ( Eyring et al., 2013 ; Young et al., 2013 ), and studies finding that lower stratospheric temperature trends are within the range of observed trends ( Young et al., 2013 ; Maycock et al., 2018 ). Different observational data and different time periods explain the different conclusions. Aquila et al. (2016) used forced chemistry-climate models with prescribed SST to investigate the influence of different forcings on global stratospheric temperature changes. They found that in the lower stratosphere, the simulated cooling trend due to increasing greenhouse gases was roughly constant over the satellite era, while changes in ODS concentrations amplified that stratospheric cooling trend during the era of increasing ozone depletion up until the mid-1990s, with a flattening of the temperature trend over the subsequent period over which stratospheric ozone has stabilized ( Section 2.2.5.2 ). Mitchell et al. (2020) showed that while models simulate realistic trends in tropical lower-stratospheric temperature over the whole 1979–2014 period when compared with radiosonde data, they tend to overestimate the cooling trend over the ozone depletion era (1979–1997) and underestimate it over the ozone stabilization era (1998–2014; Figure 3.10b,c). They speculate that those disagreements are due to poor representations of stratospheric ozone forcing.

Upper stratospheric temperature changes were not assessed in the context of attribution or model evaluation in AR5, but this is an area where there has been considerable progress over recent years ( Section 2.3.1.2.1 ). Simulated temperature changes in chemistry-climate models show good consistency with the reprocessed dataset from NOAA STAR but are less consistent with the revised UK Met Office record ( Karpechko et al., 2018 ). The latter still shows stronger cooling than simulated in chemistry-climate models ( Maycock et al., 2018 ). Reanalyses, which assimilate AMSU and SSU datasets, indicate an upper-stratospheric cooling from 1979 to 2009 of about 3°C at 5 hPa and 4°C at 1 hPa that agrees well with the cooling in simulations with prescribed SST and using CMIP5 forcings ( Simmons et al., 2014 ). Mitchell (2016) used regularized optimal fingerprinting techniques to carry out an attribution analysis of annual mid- to upper-stratospheric temperature in response to external forcings. They found that anthropogenic forcing has caused a cooling of approximately 2°C–3°C in the upper stratosphere over the period of 1979–2015, with greenhouse gases contributing two thirds of this change and ozone depletion contributing one third. They found a large upper-stratospheric temperature change in response to volcanic forcing (0.4°C–0.6°C for Mount Pinatubo) but that change is still smaller than the lower-stratospheric signal. Aquila et al. (2016) found that the cooling of the middle and upper stratosphere after 1979 is mainly due to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. Volcanic eruptions and the solar cycle were found not to affect long-term stratospheric temperature trends but to have short-term influences.

In summary, based on the latest updates to satellite observations of stratospheric temperature, we assess that simulated and observed trends in global mean temperature through the depth of the stratosphere are more consistent than based on previous datasets, but some differences remain ( medium confidence ). Studies published since AR5 increase our confidence in the simulated stratospheric temperature response to greenhouse gas and ozone changes, and support an assessment that it is extremely likely that stratospheric ozone depletion due to ozone-depleting substances was the main driver of the cooling of the lower stratosphere between 1979 and the mid-1990s, as expected from physical understanding. Similarly, revised observations and new studies support an assessment that it is extremely likely that anthropogenic forcing, both from increases in greenhouse gas concentrations and depletion of stratospheric ozone due to ozone-depleting substances, was the main driver of upper-stratospheric cooling since 1979.

Contributors: Christophe Cassou (France), Yu Kosaka (Japan), John C. Fyfe (Canada), Nathan P. Gillett (Canada), Ed Hawkins (United Kingdom), Blair Trewin (Australia)

The AR5 found that the rate of global mean surface temperature (GMST) increase inferred from observations over the 1998–2012 period was lower than the rate of increase over the 1951–2012 period, and lower than the ensemble mean increase in historical simulations from CMIP5 climate models extended by Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenario simulations beyond 2005

( Flato et al., 2013 ). This apparent slowdown of surface global warming compared to the 62-year rate was assessed with medium confidence to have been caused in roughly equal measure by a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in external forcing (particularly associated with solar and volcanic forcing) in AR5 based on expert judgement ( Flato et al., 2013 ). In AR5 it was assessed that almost all CMIP5 simulations did not reproduce the observed slower warming, and that there was medium confidence that the trend difference from the CMIP5 ensemble mean was to a substantial degree caused by internal variability with possible contributions from forcing error and model response uncertainty. This Cross-Chapter Box assesses new findings from observational products and statistical and physical models on trends over the 1998–2012 period considered in AR5.

Updated observational and reanalyses datasets and comparison with model simulations

Since AR5, there have been version updates and new releases of most observational GMST datasets (Cross-Chapter Box 2.3). All the updated products now available consistently find stronger positive trends for 1998–2012 than those assessed in AR5 ( Cowtan and Way, 2014 ; Karl et al., 2015 ; Hausfather et al., 2017 ; Medhaug et al., 2017 ; Simmons et al., 2017 ; Risbey et al., 2018 ). Simmons et al. (2017) reported that the 1998–2012 GMST trends in the updated observational and reanalysis datasets available at that time ranged from 0.06°C to 0.14°C per decade, compared with the 0.05°C per decade on average reported in AR5, while the latest data products reported in Chapter 2 Table 2.4 show GMST or global mean near-surface air temperature (GSAT) trends over that period ranging from 0.12°C to 0.14°C per decade. The lowest trend in Simmons et al. (2017) is from HadCRUT4, now superseded by HadCRUT5, which shows a trend of 0.12°C per decade. The upward revision is mainly due to improved sea surface temperature (SST) datasets and infilling of surface temperature in locations with missing records in observational products, mainly in the Arctic (see Cross-Chapter Box 2.3 for details).

With these updates, all the observed trends assessed here lie within the 10th–90th percentile range of the simulated trends in the CMIP5 and CMIP6 simulations (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1a). This result is insensitive to whether model GSAT (based on surface air temperature) or GMST (based on a blend of surface air temperature over land and sea ice and SST over open ocean) is used, and to whether or not masking with the observational data coverage is applied. Therefore, the observed 1998–2012 trend is consistent with both the CMIP5 or CMIP6 multi-model ensemble of trends over the same period ( high confidence ).

Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1 | 15-year trends of global surface temperature for 1998–2012 and 2012–2026. (a, b) GSAT and GMST trends for 1998–2012 (a) and 2012–2026 (b) . Histograms are based on GSAT in historical simulations of CMIP6 (red shading, extended by SSP2-4.5) and CMIP5 (grey shading; extended by RCP4.5). Filled and open diamonds at the top represent multi-model ensemble means of GSAT and GMST trends, respectively. Diagonal lines show histograms of HadCRUT5.0.1.0. Triangles at the top of (a) represent GMST trends from Berkeley Earth, GISTEMP, Kadow et al. (2020) and NOAAGlobalTemp-Interim, and the GSAT trend from ERA5. Selected CMIP6 members whose 1998–2012 trends are lower than the HadCRUT5.0.1.0 mean trend are indicated by purple shading (a) and (b). In (a), model GMST and GSAT, and ERA5 GSAT are masked to match HadCRUT data coverage. (c–d) Trend maps of annual near-surface temperature for 1998–2012 based on HadCRUT5.0.1.0 mean (c), and composited surface air temperature trends of subsampled CMIP6 simulations (d) with GSAT trends in the purple shaded area in (a). In (c), cross marks indicate trends that are not significant at the 10% level based on t-tests with serial correlation taken into account. The ensemble size used for each of the histograms and the trend composite is indicated at the top right of each of the panels (a, b, d). Model ensemble members are weighted with the inverse of the ensemble size of the same model, so that each model is equally weighted. Further details on data sources and processing are available in the chapter data table (Table 3.SM.1).

Internal variability

All the observation-based GMST and GSAT trends are lower than the multi-model mean GMST and GSAT trends of both CMIP5 and CMIP6 for 1998–2012 (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1a). This suggests a possible cooling contribution from internal variability during this period. This is supported by initialized decadal hindcasts, which account for the phase of the multi-decadal modes of variability (Sections 3.7.6 and 3.7.7 ), and which reproduce observed global mean SST and GSAT trends better than uninitialized historical simulations ( Guemas et al., 2013 ; Meehl et al., 2014 ).

Studies since AR5 identify Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV) as the leading mode of variability associated with unforced decadal GSAT fluctuations, with additional influence from Atlantic Multi-decadal Variability (Annex IV.2.6, IV.2.7; Brown et al., 2015 ; Dai et al., 2015 ; Steinman et al., 2015 ; Pasini et al., 2017 ). PDV transitioned from positive (El Niño-like) to negative (La Niña-like) phases during the slow warming period (Figure 3.39f and Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1c). Model ensemble members that capture the observed slower decadal warming under transient forcing, and time segments of model simulations that show decadal GSAT decreases under fixed radiative forcing, also feature negative PDV trends (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1d; Meehl et al., 2011 , 2013, 2014; Maher et al., 2014 ; Middlemas and Clement, 2016 ), suggesting the influence of PDV. This is confirmed by statistical models with the PDV-GSAT relationship estimated from observations and model simulations ( Schmidt et al., 2014 ; Meehl et al., 2016b ; Hu and Fedorov, 2017 ), selected ensemble members and time segments from model simulations where PDV by chance evolves in phase with observations over the slow warming period ( Huber and Knutti, 2014 ; Risbey et al., 2014 ), and coupled model experiments in which PDV evolution is constrained to follow the observations ( Kosaka and Xie, 2013 , 2016; England et al., 2014 ; Watanabe et al., 2014 ; Delworth et al., 2015 ). Part of the PDV trend may have been driven by anthropogenic aerosols ( Smith et al., 2016 ); however, this result is model-dependent, and internally-driven PDV dominates the forced PDV signal in the CMIP6 multi-model ensemble ( Section 3.7.6 ). It is also notable that there is large uncertainty in the magnitude of the PDV influence on GSAT across models ( Deser et al., 2017a ; C.-Y. Wang et al., 2017 ) and among the studies cited above. In addition to PDV, contributions to the reduced warming trend from wintertime Northern Hemisphere atmospheric internal variability, particularly associated with a trend towards the negative phase of the Northern Annular Mode/North Atlantic Oscillation (Annex IV.2.1; Guan et al., 2015 ; Saffioti et al., 2015 ; Iles and Hegerl, 2017 ) or the Cold Ocean–Warm Land (COWL) pattern ( Molteni et al., 2017 ; Yang et al., 2020 ) have been suggested, leading to regional continental cooling over a large part of Eurasia and North America (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1c; C. Li et al., 2015 ; Deser et al., 2017a ; Gan et al., 2019 ).

Such internally-driven variation of decadal GSAT trends is not unique to the 1998–2012 period ( Section 1.4.2.1 ; Lovejoy, 2014 ; Roberts et al., 2015 ; Dai and Bloecker, 2019 ). Due to the nature of internal variability, surface temperature changes over the 1998–2012 period are regionally- and seasonally-varying (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1c; Trenberth et al., 2014 ; Zang et al., 2019 ). Further, there was no slowdown in the increasing occurrence of hot extremes over land ( Kamae et al., 2014 ; Seneviratne et al., 2014 ; Imada et al., 2017 ). Thus, the internally-driven slowdown of GSAT increase does not correspond to slowdown of warming everywhere on the Earth’s surface.

Updated forcing

CMIP5 historical simulations driven by observed forcing variations ended in 2005 and were extended with RCP scenario simulations for model-observation comparisons beyond that date. Post AR5 studies based on updated external forcing show that while no net effect of updated anthropogenic aerosols is found on GSAT trends ( Murphy, 2013 ; Gettelman et al., 2015 ; Oudar et al., 2018 ), natural forcing by moderate volcanic eruptions in the 21st century ( Haywood et al., 2014 ; Ridley et al., 2014 ; Santer et al., 2014 ) and a prolonged solar irradiance minimum around 2009 compared to the normal 11-year cycle ( Lean, 2018 ) yield a negative contribution to radiative forcing, which was missing in CMIP5 (Figure 2.2). This explains part of the difference between observed and CMIP5 trends, as shown based on EMIC simulations ( Huber and Knutti, 2014 ; Ridley et al., 2014 ), statistical and mathematical models ( Schmidt et al., 2014 ; Lean, 2018 ), and process-based climate models ( Santer et al., 2014 ). However, in a single climate model study by Thorne et al. (2015) , updating most forcings (greenhouse gas concentrations, solar irradiance, and volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols) available when the study was done made no significant difference to the 1998–2012 GMST trend from that obtained with original CMIP5 forcing. Potential underestimation of volcanic (negative) forcing may have played a role ( Outten et al., 2015 ). In the multi-model ensemble mean, the 1998–2012 GMST trends are almost equal in CMIP5 and CMIP6 (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1, Figure 1a), suggesting compensation by a higher transient climate response and equilibrium climate sensitivity in CMIP6 than CMIP5 (Section 7.5.6). To summarize, while there is medium confidence that natural forcing that was missing in CMIP5 contributed to the difference of observed and simulated GMST trends, confidence remains low in the quantitative contribution of net forcing updates.

Energy budget and heat redistribution

The early 21st century slower warming was observed in atmospheric temperatures, but the heat capacity of the atmosphere is very small compared to that of the ocean. Although there is noticeable uncertainty among observational products (H. Su et al., 2017 ) and observation quality changes through time, global ocean heat content continued to increase during the slower surface warming period ( very high confidence ), at a rate consistent with CMIP5 and CMIP6 historical simulations (Sections 2.3.3.1, 3.5.1.3 and 7.2.2.2). There is high confidence that the Earth’s energy imbalance was larger in the 2000s than in the 1985–1999 period (Section 7.2.2.1), consistent with accelerating ocean heat uptake in the past two decades (Section 3.5.1.3 ). Internal decadal variability is mainly associated with redistribution of heat within the climate system (X.H. Yan et al., 2016 ; Drijfhout, 2018 ) while associated top of the atmosphere radiation anomalies are weak ( Palmer and McNeall, 2014 ). Heat redistribution in the top 350 m of the Indian and Pacific Oceans has been found to be the main contributor to reduced surface warming during the slower surface warming period ( Lee et al., 2015 ; Nieves et al., 2015 ; F. Liu et al., 2016 ), consistent with the simulated signature of PDV ( England et al., 2014 ; Maher et al., 2018a ; Gastineau et al., 2019 ). Below 700 m, enhanced heat uptake over the slower surface warming period was observed mainly in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean ( Chen and Tung, 2014 ), though whether this was a response to forcing or a unique signature of the slow GMST warming has been questioned (W. Liu et al., 2016 ).

Summary and implications

With updated observation-based GMST datasets and forcing, improved analysis methods, new modelling evidence and deeper understanding of mechanisms, there is very high confidence that the slower GMST and GSAT increase inferred from observations in the 1998–2012 period was a temporary event induced by internal and naturally-forced variability that partly offset the anthropogenic warming trend over this period. Nonetheless, the heating of the climate system continued during this period, as reflected in the continued warming of the global ocean ( very high confidence ) and in the continued rise of hot extremes over land ( medium confidence ). Considering all the sources of uncertainties, it is impossible to robustly identify a single cause of the early 2000s slowdown ( Hedemann et al., 2017 ; Power et al., 2017 ); rather, it should be interpreted as due to a combination of several factors ( Huber and Knutti, 2014 ; Schmidt et al., 2014 ; Medhaug et al., 2017 ).

A major El Niño event in 2014–2016 led to three consecutive years of record annual GMST with unusually strong heat release from the North-western Pacific Ocean ( Yin et al., 2018 ), which marked the end of the slower warming period ( Hu and Fedorov, 2017 ; J. Su et al., 2017 ; Cha et al., 2018 ). The past five-year period (2016–2020) is the hottest five-year period in the instrumental record up to 2020 ( high confidence ). This rapid warming was accompanied by a PDV shift toward its positive phase (J. Su et al., 2017 ; Cha et al., 2018 ). A higher rate of warming following the 1998–2012 period is consistent with the predictions in AR5 Box 9.2 ( Flato et al., 2013 ) and with a statistical prediction system (Sévellec and Drijfhout, 2018 ). Initialized decadal predictions show higher GMST trends in the early 2020s compared to uninitialized simulations ( Thoma et al., 2015 ; Meehl et al., 2016a ).

While some recent studies find that internal decadal GSAT variability may become weaker under GSAT warming, associated in part with reduced amplitude PDV ( Section 4.5.3.5 ; Brown et al., 2017 ), the weakening is small under a realistic range of warming. A large volcanic eruption would temporarily cool GSAT (Cross-Chapter Box 4.1). Thus, there is very high confidence that reduced and increased GMST and GSAT trends at decadal time scales will continue to occur in the 21st century ( Meehl et al., 2013 ; Roberts et al., 2015 ; Medhaug and Drange, 2016 ). However, such internal or volcanically forced decadal variations in GSAT trend have little effect on centennial warming ( England et al., 2015 ; Cross-Chapter Box 4.1).

3.3.2 Precipitation, Humidity and Streamflow

3.3.2.1 paleoclimate context.

A fact hindering detection and attribution studies in precipitation and other hydrological variables is the large internal variability of these fields relative to the anthropogenic signal. This low signal-to-noise ratio hinders the emergence of the anthropogenic signal from natural variability. Moreover, the sign of the change depends on location and time of the year. Paleoclimate records provide valuable context for observed trends in the 20th and 21st century and assist with the attribution of these trends to human influence (see also ( Section 2.3.1.3.1 ). By nature, hydrological proxy data represent regional conditions, but taken together can represent large-scale patterns. As an example of how paleorecords have helped assessing the origin of changes, we consider some, mainly subtropical, regions which have experienced systematic drying in recent decades (see also Section 8.3.1.3). Paleoclimate simulations of monsoons are assessed in Section 3.3.3.2 .

Records of tree ring width have provided evidence that recent prolonged dry spells in the Levant and Chile are unprecedented in the last millennium ( high confidence ) ( Cook et al., 2016a ; Garreaud et al., 2017 ). East Africa has also been drying in recent decades ( Rowell et al., 2015 ; Hoell et al., 2017 ), a trend that is unusual in the context of the sedimentary paleorecord spanning the last millennium ( Tierney et al., 2015 ). This may be a signature of anthropogenic forcing but cannot yet be distinguished from natural variability ( Hoell et al., 2017 ; Philip et al., 2018 ). Likewise, tree rings indicate that the 2012–2014 drought in the south-western United States was exceptionally severe in the context of natural variability over the last millennium, and may have been exacerbated by the contribution of anthropogenic temperature rise ( medium confidence ) ( Griffin and Anchukaitis, 2014 ; Williams et al., 2015 ). Furthermore, Williams et al. (2020) used a combination of hydrological modelling and tree-ring reconstructions to show that the period from 2000 to 2018 was the driest 19-year span in south-western North America since the late 1500s. Nonetheless, tree rings also indicate the presence of prolonged megadroughts in western North America throughout the last millennium that were more severe than 20th and 21st century events ( high confidence ) ( Cook et al., 2004 , 2010, 2015). These were associated with internal variability ( Coats et al., 2016 ; Cook et al., 2016b ) and indicate that large-magnitude changes in the water cycle may occur irrespective of anthropogenic influence (see also McKitrick and Christy, 2019 ).

Liu et al. (2018) evaluated the soil moisture changes that occurred during the LGM and concluded that the multi-model median from CMIP5 is consistent with available paleo-records in some regions, but not in others. CMIP5 models accurately reproduce an increase in moisture in the western United States, related to an intensified winter storm track and decreased evaporative demand ( Oster et al., 2015 ; Ibarra et al., 2018 ; Lora, 2018 ). On the other hand, CMIP5 models show a wide variety of responses in the tropical Indo-Pacific region, with only a few matching the pattern of change inferred from the paleoclimate record ( DiNezio and Tierney, 2013 ; DiNezio et al., 2018 ). The variable response across models is related to the effect of the exposure of the tropical shelves during glacial times, which variously intensifies or weakens convection in the rising branch of the Walker cell, depending on model parameterization ( DiNezio et al., 2011 ). For the Last Interglacial, CMIP6 models reproduce the proxy-based increased precipitation relative to pre-industrial in the North African, South Asian and North American regions, but not in Australia ( Scussolini et al., 2019 ).

In summary, there is medium confidence that CMIP5 and CMIP6 models can reproduce broad aspects of precipitation changes during paleo reference periods, but large discrepancies remain. Further assessment of model performance and comparison between CMIP5 and CMIP6 during past climates can be found in Section 3.8.2.1 .

3.3.2.2 Atmospheric Water Vapour

The AR5 concluded that an anthropogenic contribution to increases in specific humidity is found with medium confidence at and near the surface. A levelling off of atmospheric water vapour over land in the last two decades that needed better understanding, and remaining observational uncertainties, precluded a more confident assessment ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). Sections 4.5.1.3 and 8.3.1.4 show that there have been significant advances in the understanding of the processes controlling land surface humidity. In particular, there has been a focus on the role of oceanic moisture transport and land-atmosphere feedbacks in explaining the observed trends in relative humidity.

The detection and attribution of tropospheric water vapour changes can be traced back to Santer et al. (2007) , who used estimates of atmospheric water vapour from the satellite-based Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) and from CMIP3 historical climate simulations. They provided evidence of human-induced moistening of the troposphere, and found that the simulated human fingerprint pattern was detectable at the 5% level by 2002 in water vapour satellite data (from 1988 to 2006). The observed changes matched the historical simulations forced by greenhouse gas changes and other anthropogenic forcings, and not those due to natural variability alone. Then, Santer et al. (2009) repeated this study with CMIP5 models, and found that the detection and attribution conclusions were not sensitive to model quality. These results demonstrate that the human fingerprint is governed by robust and basic physical processes, such as the water vapour feedback. Finally, Chung et al. (2014) extended this line of research by focusing on the global-mean water vapour content in the upper troposphere. Using satellite-based observations and sets of CMIP5 climate simulations run under various climate-forcing options, they showed that the observed moistening trend of the upper troposphere over the 1979–2005 period could not be explained by internal variability alone, but is attributable to a combination of anthropogenic and natural forcings. This increase in water vapour is accompanied by a reduction in mid-tropospheric relative humidity and clouds in the subtropics and mid-latitude in both models and observations related to changes in the Hadley cell ( Section 3.3.3.1.1 ; Lau and Kim, 2015 ).

Dunn et al. (2017) confirmed earlier findings that global mean surface relative humidity increased between 1973 and 2000, followed by a steep decline (also reported in Willett et al., 2014 ) until 2013, and specific humidity correspondingly increased and then remained approximately constant (see also ( Section 2.3.1.3.2 ), with none of the CMIP5 models capturing this behaviour. They noted biases in the mean state of the CMIP5 models’ surface relative humidity (and ascribed the failure to the representation of land surface processes and their response to CO 2 forcing), concluding that these biases preclude any detection and attribution assessment. On the other hand, Byrne and O’Gorman (2018) showed that the positive trend in specific humidity continued in recent years and can be detected over land and ocean from 1979 to 2016. Moreover, they provided a theory suggesting that the increase in annual surface temperature and specific humidity as well as the decrease in relative humidity observed over land are linked to warming over the neighbouring ocean. They also pointed out that the negative trend in relative humidity over land regions is quite uncertain and requires further investigation. A recent study has also identified an anthropogenically-driven decrease in relative humidity over the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude continents in summer between 1979 and 2014, which was underestimated by CMIP5 models ( Douville and Plazzotta, 2017 ). Furthermore, in a modelling study Douville et al. (2020) showed that this decrease in boreal summer relative humidity over mid-latitudes is related not only to global ocean warming, but also to the physiological effect of CO 2 on plants in the land surface model.

In summary, we assess that it is likely that human influence has contributed to moistening in the upper troposphere since 1979. Also, there is medium confidence that human influence contributed to a global increase in annual surface specific humidity, and medium confidence that it contributed to a decrease in surface relative humidity over mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere continents during summertime.

3.3.2.3 Precipitation

AR5 concluded that there was medium confidence that human influence had contributed to large-scale precipitation changes over land since 1950, including an increase in the Northern Hemisphere mid- to high latitudes. Moreover, AR5 concluded that observational uncertainties and challenges in precipitation modelling precluded a more confident assessment ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). Overall, it found that large-scale features of mean precipitation in CMIP5 models were in modest agreement with observations, but there were systematic errors in the tropics ( Flato et al., 2013 ).

Since AR5, X. Li et al. (2016b) found that CMIP5 models simulate the large scale patterns of annual mean land precipitation and seasonality well, as well as reproducing qualitatively the observed zonal mean land precipitation trends for the period 1948–2005: models capture the drying trends in the tropics and at 45°S and the wetting trend in the Northern Hemisphere mid- to high latitudes, but the amplitudes of the changes are much smaller than observed. Land precipitation was found to show enhanced seasonality in observations ( Chou et al., 2013 ), qualitatively consistent with the simulated response to anthropogenic forcing ( Dwyer et al., 2014 ). However, models do not appear to reproduce the zonal mean trends in the magnitude of the seasonal cycle over the period 1948–2005, nor the two-dimensional distributions of trends of annual precipitation and seasonality over land, but differences may be explainable by internal variability (X. Li et al., 2016 b). However, observed trends in seasonality depend on data set used (X. Li et al., 2016 b; Marvel et al., 2017 ), and Marvel et al. (2017) found that observed changes in the annual cycle phase are consistent with model estimates of forced changes. These phase changes are mainly characterized by earlier onset of the wet season on the equatorward flanks of the extratropical storm tracks, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. Box 8.2 assesses regional changes in water cycle seasonality.

The CMIP5 models have also been shown to adequately simulate the mean and interannual variability of the global monsoon ( Section 3.3.3.2 ), but maintain the double ITCZ bias in the equatorial Pacific ( Lee and Wang, 2014 ; Tian, 2015 ; Ni and Hsu, 2018 ). Despite the ITCZ bias, CMIP5 models have been used to detect in reanalysis a southward shift in the ITCZ prior to 1975, followed by a northward shift in the ITCZ after 1975, in response to forced changes in inter-hemispheric temperature contrast (Sections 3.3.1.1 and 8.3.2.1, and Figure 8.11; Bonfils et al., 2020 ; Friedman et al., 2020 ). CMIP5 models perform better than CMIP3 models, in particular regarding the global monsoon domain and intensity ( Lee and Wang, 2014 ).

In observations at time scales less than a day intermittent rainfall fluctuations dominate variability, but CMIP5 models systematically underestimate them ( Covey et al., 2018 ). Moreover, as noted in previous generation models, CMIP5 models produce rainfall too early in the day ( Covey et al., 2016 ). Also, models overpredict precipitation frequency but have weaker intensity, although comparison with observed datasets is complex as there are large differences in intensity among them ( Herold et al., 2016 ; Pendergrass and Deser, 2017 ; Trenberth et al., 2017 ). Regarding trends in precipitation intensity, models have also been shown to reproduce the compensation between increasing heavy precipitation and decreasing light to moderate rainfall ( Thackeray et al., 2018b ), a characteristic found in the observational record ( Gu and Adler, 2018 ). Regional model performance is further assessed in Chapter 8 and the Atlas, while precipitation extremes are considered in Chapter 11.

Recent studies comparing observations and CMIP5 simulations have shown that tropical volcanic eruptions induce a significant reduction in global precipitation, particularly over the wet tropics, including the global monsoon regions ( Iles and Hegerl, 2014 ; Paik and Min, 2017 ; Paik et al., 2020a ). Reconstructions and modelling studies also suggest a distinct remote influence of volcanic forcing such that large volcanoes erupting in one hemisphere can enhance monsoon precipitation in the other hemisphere (F. Liu et al., 2016 ; Zuo et al., 2019 ). The climatic effect of volcanic eruptions is further assessed in Cross-Chapter Box 4.1.

An intensification of the wet–dry zonal mean patterns, consisting of the wet tropical and mid-latitude bands becoming wetter, and the dry subtopics becoming drier is expected in response to greenhouse gas and ozone changes (Section 8.2.2.2). However, detecting these changes is complicated by model errors in locating the main features of rainfall patterns. To deal with this issue, Marvel and Bonfils (2013) identified in each CMIP5 historical simulation the latitudinal peaks and troughs of the rainfall latitudinal patterns, measured the amplification and shift of these patterns in a pattern-based fingerprinting study, and found that the simultaneous amplification and shift in zonal precipitation patterns are detectable in Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) observations over the 1979–2012 period. Similarly, Bonfils et al. (2020) found that the intensification of wet–dry zonal patterns identified in CMIP5 historical simulations is detectable in reanalyses over the 1950–2014 period (see also Figure 8.11).

A gridpoint based analysis of annual precipitation trends over land regions since 1901 ( Knutson and Zeng, 2018 ) comparing observed and simulated trends found that detectable anthropogenic increasing trends have occurred prominently over many mid- to high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere and subtropics of the Southern Hemisphere. The observed trends in many cases are significantly stronger than modelled in the CMIP5 historical runs for the 1901–2010 period (though not for 1951–2010), which may be due to disagreement between observed datasets ( Section 2.3.1.3.4 ), and/or suggest possible deficiencies in models.

The observed precipitation increase in the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes over the period 1966–2005 was attributed to anthropogenic forcing by a study using CMIP5 models ( Wan et al., 2015 ) supporting the AR5 assessment. Initial results from CMIP6 also support the role of anthropogenic forcing in the precipitation increase observed in Northern Hemisphere high latitudes (see Figure 3.15c): the observed positive trend detected for the band 60°N–90°N can only be reproduced when anthropogenic forcing is included, although models tend to simulate overall a larger positive trend. A similar positive trend, but less significant, is also detected between 30°N–60°N, while in the southern mid-latitudes no trend is simulated (see Figure 3.15d, f).

For the Southern Hemisphere extratropics, Solman and Orlanski (2016) found that the observed summertime rainfall increase over high latitudes and decrease over mid-latitudes over the period 1979–2010 are quasi-zonally symmetric and related to changes in eddy activity. The latter were in turn found to be associated with the poleward shift of the westerlies due mostly to ozone depletion. Positive rainfall trends in the subtropics, particularly over south-eastern South America (see also Section 10.4.2.2) and northern and central Australia, have been also attributed to stratospheric ozone depletion ( Kang et al., 2011 ; Gonzalez et al., 2014 ) and greenhouse gases ( Vera and Díaz, 2015 ; Saurral et al., 2019 ). During austral winter, wetting at high latitudes and drying at mid-latitudes are not zonally homogenous, due to both changes in eddy activity and increased lower troposphere humidity. Solman and Orlanski (2016) associated these climate changes with increases in greenhouse gas concentration levels. Recently, Blazquez and Solman (2017) have shown that CMIP5 models represent very well the dynamical forcing and the frequency of frontal precipitation in the Southern Hemisphere winter extratropics, but the amount of precipitation due to fronts is overestimated. Chapters 10 and 11 validate in more detail the simulation of fronts in climate models (Sections 10.3.3.4.4 and 11.7.2.3).

Over the ocean, observations show coherent large-scale patterns of fresh ocean regions becoming fresher and salty ocean regions saltier across the globe, which has been related through modelling studies to changes in precipitation minus evaporation and is consistent with the wet-gets-wetter, dry-gets-drier paradigm (see Sections 3.5.2.2 and 8.2.2.1; Durack et al., 2012 , 2013; Skliris et al., 2014 ; Durack, 2015 ; Hegerl et al., 2015 ; Levang and Schmitt, 2015 ; Zika et al., 2015 ; Grist et al., 2016 ; Cheng et al., 2020 ).

Overall, studies published since AR5 provide further evidence of an anthropogenic influence on precipitation, and therefore we now assess that it is likely that human influence has contributed to large-scale precipitation changes observed since the mid-20th century. New attribution studies strengthen previous findings of a detectable increase in mid to high latitude land precipitation over the Northern Hemisphere ( high confidence ). There is medium confidence that human influence has contributed to a strengthening of the zonal mean wet tropics-dry subtropics contrast, and that tropical rainfall changes follow the wet-gets-wetter, dry-gets-drier paradigm. There is also medium confidence that ozone depletion has increased precipitation over the southern high latitudes and decreased it over southern mid-latitudes during austral summer. Owing to observational uncertainties and inconsistent results between studies, we conclude that there is low confidence in the attribution of changes in the seasonality of precipitation.

3.3.2.4 Streamflow

Streamflow is to-date the only variable of the terrestrial water cycle with enough in-situ observations to allow for detection and attribution analysis at continental to global scales. Based on evidence from a few formal detection and attribution studies, particularly on the timing of peak streamflow, and the qualitative evaluation of studies reporting on observed and simulated trends, AR5 concluded that there is medium confidence that anthropogenic influence on climate has affected streamflow in some middle and high latitude regions ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). The AR5 also noted that observational uncertainties are large and that often only a limited number of models were considered.

( Section 2.3.1.3.6 assesses that there have not been significant trends in global average streamflow over the last century, though regional trends have been observed, driven in part by internal variability. Only a limited number of studies have systematically compared observed streamflow trends at continental to global scales with changes simulated by global circulation models in a detection and attribution setting. H. Yang et al. (2017) did not find a significant correlation between observed runoff changes and changes simulated in CMIP5 models in most grid cells, consistent with the assessment that observed changes are dominated by internal variability. In a pan-European assessment, Gudmundsson et al. (2017) attributed the spatio-temporal pattern of decreasing streamflow in southern Europe and increasing streamflow in northern Europe to anthropogenic climate change, but also concluded that additional effects of human water withdrawals could not be excluded. Focussing on continental runoff between 1958 and 2004, Alkama et al. (2013) found a significant change only when using reconstructed data over all rivers, and a large uncertainty in the estimate of the global streamflow trend due to opposing changes over different continents. Gedney et al. (2014) detected the influence of aerosols on streamflow in North America and Europe, with aerosols having driven an increase in streamflow due to reduced evaporation (see Section 8.3.1.5 for details on processes). There is also evidence for a detectable anthropogenic contribution toward earlier winter-spring streamflows in the north-central US ( Kam et al., 2018 ) and in western Canada ( Najafi et al., 2017 ). From a model evaluation perspective, Sheffield et al. (2013) reported that CMIP5 models reproduce spatial variations in runoff in North America well, though they tend to underestimate it.

Recently, Gudmundsson et al. (2021) performed a global detection and attribution study on streamflow and found that some regions are drying and others are wetting. Moreover, the simulated streamflow trends are consistent with observations only if externally forced climate change is considered, and the simulated effects of water and land management cannot reproduce the observed trends. The effects of volcanic eruptions in driving reduced streamflow have also been detected in the wet tropics ( Iles and Hegerl, 2015 ; Zuo et al., 2019 ).

In summary, there is medium confidence that anthropogenic climate change has altered local and regional streamflow in various parts of the world and that the associated global-scale trend pattern is inconsistent with internal variability. Moreover, human interventions and water withdrawals, while affecting streamflow, cannot explain the observed spatio-temporal trends ( medium confidence ).

Contributors: Nathan P. Gillett (Canada), Seung-Ki Min (Republic of Korea), Krishnan Raghavan (India), Ying Sun (China), Xuebin Zhang (Canada)

Understanding how temperature and precipitation extremes have changed at large scales and the causes of these changes is an important part of our overall assessment of human influence on the climate system. Chapter 11 assesses changes in extremes and their causes, while this Cross-Chapter Box summarizes relevant assessments and supporting evidence in Chapters 8 and 11 and relates changes in extremes to mean changes on global and continental scales.

Attribution of temperature extremes

One important aspect of various indicators of temperature extremes is their connection to mean temperature at local, regional and global scales. For example, the highest daily temperature in a summer is often highly correlated with the summer mean temperature. Model projections show that changes in temperature extremes are often closely related to shifts in mean temperature ( Seneviratne et al., 2016 ; Kharin et al., 2018 ). It is thus no surprise that changes in temperature extremes are consistent with warming mean temperature, with warming leading to more hot extremes and fewer cold extremes. Given the attribution of mean warming to human influence ( Section 3.3.1 ), and the connection between changes in mean and extreme temperatures, it is to be expected that anthropogenic forcing has also influenced temperature extremes.

( Chapter 11 assesses that there is high confidence that climate models can reproduce the mean state and overall warming of temperature extremes observed globally and in most regions, although the magnitude of the trends may differ, and the ability of models to capture observed trends in temperature-related extremes depends on the metric evaluated, the way indices are calculated, and the time periods and spatial scales considered (Section 11.3.3). There has been widespread evidence of human influence on various aspects of temperature extremes, at global, continental, and regional scales. This includes attribution to human influence of observed changes in intensity, frequency, and duration and other relevant characteristics at global and continental scales (Section 11.3.4). The left-hand panel of Cross-Chapter Box 3.2, Figure 1 clearly shows that long-term changes in the global mean annual maximum daily maximum temperature can be reproduced by both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models forced with the combined effect of natural and anthropogenic forcings, but cannot be reproduced by simulations under natural forcing alone. Consistent with the assessment for global mean temperature ( Section 3.3.1 ), aerosol changes are found to have offset part of the greenhouse gas induced increase in hot extremes globally and over most continents over the 1951–2015 period ( Hu et al., 2020 ; Seong et al., 2021 ), though greenhouse gas and aerosol influences are less clearly separable in observed changes in cold extremes.

( Chapter 11 assesses that it is virtually certain that human-induced greenhouse gas forcing is the main contributor to the observed increase in the likelihood and severity of hot extremes and the observed decrease in the likelihood and severity of cold extremes on global scales, and very likely that this applies on most continents.

Attribution of precipitation extremes

An important piece of evidence supporting the SREX and AR5 assessment that there is medium confidence that anthropogenic forcing has contributed to a global scale intensification of heavy precipitation during the second half of the 20th century is the evidence for anthropogenic influence on other aspects of the global hydrological cycle. The most significant aspect of that is the increase in atmospheric moisture content associated with warming which should, in general, lead to enhanced extreme precipitation, particularly associated with enhanced convergence in tropical and extratropical cyclones (Sections 8.2.3.2 and 11.4.1). Such a connection is supported by the fact that annual maximum one-day precipitation increases with global mean temperature at a rate similar to the increase in the moisture holding capacity in response to warming, both in observations and in model simulations. Additionally, models project an increase in extreme precipitation across global land regions even in areas in which total annual or seasonal precipitation is projected to decrease.

The overall performance of CMIP6 models in simulating extreme precipitation intensity and frequency is similar to that of CMIP5 models ( high confidence ), and there is high confidence in the ability of models to capture the large-scale spatial distribution of precipitation extremes over land (Section 11.4.3). Evidence of human influence on extreme precipitation has become stronger since AR5. Considering changes in precipitation intensity averaged over all wet days, there is high confidence that daily mean precipitation intensities have increased since the mid-20th century in a majority of land regions, including Europe, North America and Asia, and it is likely that such an increase is mainly due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (Sections 8.3.1.3 and 11.4.4). Section 11.4.4 also finds a larger fraction of land showing enhanced extreme precipitation and a larger probability of record-breaking one-day precipitation than expected by chance, which can only be explained when anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing is considered. The right-hand

Cross-Chapter Box 3.2

panel of Cross-Chapter Box 3.2, Figure 1 demonstrates the consistency between changes in global average annual maximum daily precipitation in the observations and model simulations under combined anthropogenic and natural forcing, and inconsistency with simulations under natural forcing alone. While there is more evidence in the literature to quantify the net anthropogenic influence on extreme precipitation than the influence of individual forcing components, a dominant contribution of greenhouse gas forcing to the long-term intensification of extreme precipitation on global and continental scales has recently been quantified separately from the influence of anthropogenic aerosol and natural forcings ( Dong et al., 2020 ; Paik et al., 2020b ).

Chapter 11 assesses that it is likely that human influence, in particular due to greenhouse gas forcing, is the main driver of the observed intensification of heavy precipitation in global land regions during recent decades (Section 11.4.4).

Cross-Chapter Box 3.2, Figure 1 | Comparison of observed and simulated changes in global mean temperature and precipitation extremes. Time series of globally averaged five-year mean anomalies of the annual maximum daily maximum temperature (TXx in °C) and annual maximum 1-day precipitation (Rx1day as standardized probability index in %) between 1953 and 2017 from the HadEX3 observations and the CMIP5 and CMIP6 multi-model ensembles with natural and human forcing (top) and natural forcing only (bottom) . For CMIP5, historical simulations for 1953–2005 are combined with corresponding RCP4.5 scenario runs for 2006–2017. For CMIP6, historical simulations for 1953–2014 are combined with SSP2-4.5 scenario simulations for 2015–2017. Numbers in brackets represent the number of models used. The time-fixed observational mask has been applied to model data throughout the whole period. Grid cells with more than 70% of data available between 1953 and 2017 plus data for at least three years between 2013 and 2017 are used. Coloured lines indicate multi-model means, while shading represents 5th–95th percentile ranges, based on all available ensemble members with equal weight given to each model ( Section 3.2 ). Anomalies are relative to 1961–1990 means. Figure is updated from Seong et al. (2021) , their Figure 3 and Paik et al. (2020b) , their Figure 3. Further details on data sources and processing are available in the chapter data table (Table 3.SM.1). Open figure

3.3.3 Atmospheric Circulation

3.3.3.1 the hadley and walker circulations.

The tropical tropospheric circulation features meridional and zonal overturning circulations, called Hadley and Walker circulations. In the zonal mean, the downwelling branch of the Hadley circulation cell is located in the subtropics and is often used as an indicator of the meridional extent of the tropics. In the equatorial zonal-vertical section, the major rising branch of the Walker circulation is located over the Maritime continent with secondary ascending regions over northern South America and Africa. The zonal component of the surface trade winds over most of the equatorial Pacific and Atlantic is associated with the Walker circulation. This section assesses the zonal-mean Hadley cell extent and the Pacific Walker circulation strength. Regional and water cycle aspects of these circulations are assessed in more detail in Section 8.3.2.

AR5 found medium confidence that the depletion of stratospheric ozone had contributed to Hadley cell widening in the Southern Hemisphere in austral summer ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). It also noted that in contrast to a simulated weakening in response to greenhouse gas forcing, the Walker circulation had actually strengthened since the early 1990s, precluding any detection of human influence.

3.3.3.1.1 Hadley cell extent

Grise et al. (2019) found that a metric based on surface zonal winds, which are well constrained by surface observations, best compares reanalyses with CMIP5 models. With this method and new reanalysis products, the CMIP5 historical simulations exhibit comparable mean states and variability of the subtropical edge latitude of the Hadley cells to those observed ( Grise et al., 2019 ).

In the annual mean, internal variability, including Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV; Annex IV.2.6), contributed to the observed zonal-mean Hadley cell expansion since 1980 comparably with human influence ( Allen et al., 2014 ; Allen and Kovilakam, 2017 ; Mantsis et al., 2017 ; Amaya et al., 2018 ; Grise et al., 2018 ). Indeed, the ensemble-mean expansion in historical simulations is significantly weaker than in most of the reanalyses shown in Figure 3.16a–c, while the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) simulations forced by observed SSTs (Figure 3.16a–c) show stronger trends than historical coupled simulations on average ( Nguyen et al., 2015 ; Davis and Birner, 2017 ; Grise et al., 2018 ). The human-induced change has not yet clearly emerged out of the internal variability range in the Northern Hemisphere ( Quan et al., 2018 ; Grise et al., 2019 ), whereas the trend in the annual-mean Southern Hemisphere edge is outside the 5th–95th percentile range of internal variability in CMIP6 in three out of the four reanalyses (Figure 3.16b). For the Southern Hemisphere summer when the simulated human influence is strongest, the 1981–2000 trend in three out of the four reanalyses falls outside the 5th–95th percentile range of internal variability (Figure 3.16c; L. Tao et al., 2016 ; Grise et al., 2018 , 2019).

In CMIP5 simulations, greenhouse gas increases and, in austral summer, stratospheric ozone depletion, contribute to the Southern Hemisphere expansion ( Gerber and Son, 2014 ; Nguyen et al., 2015 ; L. Tao et al., 2016 ; Y.H. Kim et al., 2017 ), but the ozone influence is not significant in available CMIP6 simulations (Figure 3.16b–c). Since the 2000s, the stabilization or slight recovery of stratospheric ozone ( Section 2.2.5.2 ) is consistent with the smaller observed trends ( Banerjee et al., 2020 ). While many CMIP5 models under-represent the magnitude of the PDV, implying potential overconfidence on the detection of human influence on the Hadley cell expansion, this is less the case for the CMIP6 models ( Section 3.7.6 ). However, the mechanism underlying the Hadley cell expansion remains unclear ( Staten et al., 2018 , 2020), precluding a process-based validation of the simulated human influence.

3.3.3.1.2 Walker circulation strength

CMIP5 models reproduce the mean state of the Walker circulation with reasonable fidelity, evidenced by the spatial pattern correlations of equatorial zonal mass stream function between models and observations being larger than 0.88 ( Ma and Zhou, 2016 ). CMIP5 historical simulations on average simulate a significant weakening of the Pacific Walker circulation over the 20th century ( DiNezio et al., 2013 ; Sandeep et al., 2014 ; Kociuba and Power, 2015 ), which is also seen in CMIP6 (Figure 3.16d). This weakening is accompanied by a reduction of convective activity over the Maritime Continent and an enhancement over the central equatorial Pacific ( DiNezio et al., 2013 ; Sandeep et al., 2014 ; Kociuba and Power, 2015 ). In the CMIP6 simulations, greenhouse gas forcing induces this weakening (Figure 3.16d), which is consistent with theories based on radiative-convective equilibrium ( Vecchi et al., 2006 ; Vecchi and Soden, 2007 ) and thermodynamic air-sea coupling ( Xie et al., 2010 ), but inconsistent with a theory highlighting the ocean dynamical effect which suggests a strengthening in response to greenhouse gas increases ( Clement et al., 1996 ; Seager et al., 2019 ; see also Section 7.4.4.2.1). Seager et al. (2019) attributed this inconsistency to equatorial Pacific SST biases in the models ( Section 3.5.1.2.1 ). However, observational and reanalysis datasets disagree on the sign of trends in the Walker Circulation strength over the 1901–2010 period (Figure 3.16d), and Section 2.3.1.4.1 assesses low confidence in observed long-term Walker Circulation trends. The observational uncertainty remains high in the trends since the 1950s ( Tokinaga et al., 2012 ; L’Heureux et al., 2013 ), though both CMIP5 and CMIP6 historical simulations span trends of all but one observational data set (Figure 3.16e). For this period, external influence simulated in CMIP6 is insignificant due to a partial compensation of forced responses to greenhouse gases and aerosols and large internal decadal variability (Figure 3.16e). It is notable that while AMIP simulations on average show strengthening over both the periods, those simulations are forced by one reconstruction of SST, which itself is subject to uncertainty before the 1970s ( Deser et al., 2010 ; Tokinaga et al., 2012 ).

Observational SST products indicate that the equatorial zonal SST gradient from the western to the eastern equatorial Pacific has strengthened since 1870 (Section 7.4.4.2.1). While CMIP5 historical simulations on average simulate a weakening, large ensemble simulations span the observed strengthening since the 1950s ( Watanabe et al., 2021 ) suggesting an important contribution from internal variability. Coats and Karnauskas (2017) also find that the anthropogenic influence on the SST gradient is yet to emerge out of internal variability even on centennial time scales.

Trends since the 1980s in in-situ and satellite observations and reanalyses exhibit strengthening of the Pacific Walker circulation and SST gradient ( Section 2.3.1.4.1 and Figure 3.16f; L’Heureux et al., 2013; Boisséson et al., 2014 ; England et al., 2014 ; Kociuba and Power, 2015 ; Ma and Zhou, 2016 ). AMIP simulations reproduce this strengthening (Figure 3.16d; Boisséson et al., 2014 ; Ma and Zhou, 2016 ), indicating a dominant role of SST changes. However, all reanalysis trends lie outside the 5–95% range of simulated CMIP6 historical Walker circulation trends over this period (Figure 3.16f), consistent with CMIP5 results ( England et al., 2014 ; Kociuba and Power, 2015 ). This may be in part caused by the underestimation of the PDV magnitude especially in CMIP5 models (Section 3.7.6 ; Kociuba and Power, 2015 ; Chung et al., 2019 ), but also suggests a potential error in simulating the forced changes of the Walker circulation. Specifically, anthropogenic and volcanic aerosol changes over this period may have driven a strengthening ( DiNezio et al., 2013 ; Takahashi and Watanabe, 2016 ; Hua et al., 2018 ). This aerosol influence may be indirect via Atlantic Multi-decadal Variability (AMV; Annex IV.2.7) through inter-basin teleconnections ( McGregor et al., 2014 ; Chikamoto et al., 2016 ; Kucharski et al., 2016 ; X. Li et al., 2016 a; Ruprich-Robert et al., 2017 ), which may be underestimated in models due to SST biases in the equatorial Atlantic ( Section 3.5.1.2.2 ; McGregor et al., 2018 ). Note also the large uncertainty in aerosol influence on the Walker circulation ( Kuntz and Schrag, 2016 ; Hua et al., 2018 ; Oudar et al., 2018 ), which is also seen in CMIP6 (Figure 3.16f).

Paleoclimate data from the Pliocene epoch suggest that there was a reduction in the zonal SST gradient in the tropical Pacific under a similar CO 2 concentration as today (Section 7.4.4.2.2 and Cross-Chapter Box 2.4). Tierney et al. (2019) found that this weaker gradient compared to pre-industrial, which suggests a weaker Walker circulation, is captured by climate models under Pliocene CO 2 levels, in agreement with the CMIP6 response to greenhouse gas forcing (Figure 3.16d), though the magnitude of this effect varies strongly between models ( Corvec and Fletcher, 2017 ).

3.3.3.1.3 Summary

It is likely that human influence has contributed to the poleward expansion of the zonal mean Hadley cell in the Southern Hemisphere since the 1980s. This assessment is supported by studies since AR5, which consistently find human influence from greenhouse gas increases on the expansion, with additional influence from ozone depletion in austral summer. For the strong ozone depletion period of 1981–2000, human influence is detectable in the summertime poleward expansion in the Southern Hemisphere ( medium confidence ). By contrast, there is medium confidence that the expansion of the zonal mean Hadley cell in the Northern Hemisphere is within the range of internal variability, with contributions from PDV and other internal variability. The causes of the observed strengthening of the Pacific Walker circulation over the 1980–2014 period are not well understood, since the observed strengthening trend is outside the range of variability simulated in the coupled models ( medium confidence ). Large observational uncertainty, lack of understanding of the mechanism underlying the poleward Hadley cell expansion, and contradicting theories on the greenhouse gas influence and uncertainty in the aerosol influence on the Walker circulation strength, limit confidence in these assessments.

3.3.3.2 Global Monsoon

AR5 assessed that CMIP5 models simulated monsoons better than CMIP3 models but that biases remained in domains and intensity ( high confidence ) ( Flato et al., 2013 ). There were no detection and attribution assessment statements on the decreasing trend of global monsoon precipitation over land from the 1950s to the 1980s or the increasing trend of global monsoon precipitation afterwards. In the paleoclimate context, it was determined with high confidence that orbital forcing produces strong interhemispheric rainfall variability evident in multiple types of proxies ( Masson-Delmotte et al., 2013 ).

Paleoclimate proxy evidence shows that the global monsoon has varied with orbital forcing and greenhouse gases ( Section 2.3.1.4.2 ; Mohtadi et al., 2016 ; Seth et al., 2019 ). These large-magnitude intensifications and weakenings in the global monsoon involved in some cases orders-of-magnitude changes in precipitation locally ( Harrison et al., 2014 ; Tierney et al., 2017 ). Paleoclimate modelling and limited data from past climate states with high CO 2 suggest that precipitation intensifies in the monsoon domain under elevated greenhouse gases, providing context for present and future trends ( Passey et al., 2009 ; Haywood et al., 2013 ; Zhang et al., 2013b ). In model simulations of the mid-Pliocene, when globally averaged temperature was higher than present day, precipitation was larger in West African, South Asian and East Asian monsoons than under pre-industrial conditions, consistent with proxy evidence ( Zhang et al., 2015 ; Sun et al., 2016 , 2018; Corvec and Fletcher, 2017 ; X. Li et al., 2018 ). Prescott et al. (2019) and R. Zhang et al. (2019) find an important role for orbital forcing and CO 2 in the mid-Pliocene monsoon expansion and intensification. Models are also able to capture interhemispherically contrasting monsoon changes in the Last Interglacial in response to orbital forcing and greenhouse gases, with wetter West African and Asian monsoons and a drier South American monsoon as seen in proxies ( Govin et al., 2014 ; Gierz et al., 2017 ; Pedersen et al., 2017 ). In overall agreement with proxy evidence, a model with transient forcing simulates wetting and drying respectively of the Southern and Northern Hemisphere monsoons during the last deglaciation, with an important contribution from Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) slowdown ( Otto-Bliesner et al., 2014 ; Mohtadi et al., 2016 ).

During the mid-Holocene, global monsoons were stronger especially in the Northern Hemisphere with an expansion of the West African monsoon domain in response to orbital forcing ( Biasutti et al., 2018 ; Section 2.3.1.4.2 ). Simulations of the mid-Holocene with CMIP5 and CMIP6 models qualitatively capture the stronger Northern Hemisphere monsoon ( Jiang et al., 2015 ; Brierley et al., 2020 ), mainly driven by atmospheric circulation changes ( D’Agostino et al., 2019 ). However, the models underestimate the monsoon expansion found in proxy reconstructions ( Perez-Sanz et al., 2014 ; Harrison et al., 2015 ; Tierney et al., 2017 ), which may be linked to mean biases in the monsoon domain ( Brierley et al., 2020 ) and may be improved by imposing vegetation and dust changes ( Pausata et al., 2016 ). The models simulate the weaker Southern Hemisphere monsoon during the mid-Holocene ( D’Agostino et al., 2020 ), consistent with proxy evidence ( Section 2.3.1.4.2 ). These studies indicate that models can qualitatively reproduce past global monsoon changes seen in proxies, though issues remain in quantitatively reproducing proxy observations. Studies of last millennium simulations show that simulated global monsoon precipitation increases with global mean temperature, while changes in monsoon circulation and hemispheric monsoon precipitation depend on forcing sources ( Liu et al., 2012 ; Chai et al., 2018 ). Compared to greenhouse gas and solar variations, volcanic forcing is more effective in changing the global monsoon precipitation over the last millennium ( Chai et al., 2018 ).

Reproducing monsoons in terms of domain, precipitation amount, and timings of onset and retreat over the historical period also remains difficult. While CMIP5 historical simulations broadly capture global monsoon domains and intensity based on summer and winter precipitation differences, they underestimate the extent and intensity of East Asian and North American monsoons while overestimating them over the tropical western North Pacific ( Lee and Wang, 2014 ; M. Yan et al., 2016 ). B. Wang et al. (2020) reported that CMIP6 models simulate the global monsoon domain and precipitation better (Figure 3.17a,b), albeit with biases in annual mean precipitation and the timings of onset and withdrawal of the Southern Hemisphere monsoon. Notable inter-model differences were identified in CMIP5, with the multi-model ensemble mean outperforming individual models ( Lee and Wang, 2014 ). Common biases were identified across CMIP5 models in moist static energy and upper-tropospheric temperature associated with the South Asian summer monsoon, which may arise from overly smoothed model topography ( Boos and Hurley, 2012 ). However, in atmospheric models with increasing resolution approaching 20 km, improvements in monsoon precipitation are not universal across regions and models, and overall improvements are unclear ( Johnson et al., 2016 ; Ogata et al., 2017 ; L. Zhang et al., 2018 b ) .

In instrumental records, global summer monsoon precipitation intensity (measured by summer precipitation averaged over the monsoon domain) decreased from the 1950s to 1980s, followed by an increase ( Section 2.3.1.4.2 and Figure 3.17c), arising mainly from variations in Northern Hemispheric land monsoons. A CMIP5 multi-model study by Y. Zhang et al. (2018) found that observed 1951–2004 trends of the global and Northern Hemisphere summer land monsoon precipitation intensity are well captured by historical simulations, and CMIP6 models show similar results for global land summer monsoon precipitation (Figure 3.17c). However, the 1960s peak in the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon circulation is outside the 5th–95th percentile range of CMIP5 and CMIP6 historical simulations for two out of three reanalyses (Figure 3.17d). Modelling studies show that greenhouse gas increases act to enhance Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon precipitation intensity ( Liu et al., 2012 ; Polson et al., 2014 ; Chai et al., 2018 ; L. Zhang et al., 2018 b ). Since the mid-20th century, however, modelling studies show that this effect was overwhelmed by the influence of anthropogenic aerosols in CMIP5 ( Polson et al., 2014 ; Guo et al., 2015 ; Y. Zhang et al., 2018 ; Giannini and Kaplan, 2019 ) and in CMIP6 (T. Zhou et al., 2020 ). Weakening of the monsoon circulation and reduction of moisture availability are important in this aerosol influence (T. Zhou et al., 2020 ). Besides these human influences, the global monsoon is sensitive to internal variability and natural forcing including ENSO and volcanic aerosols on interannual time scales and PDV and AMV on decadal to multi-decadal time scales ( Wang et al., 2013 , 2018; F. Liu et al., 2016 ; Jiang and Zhou, 2019 ; Zuo et al., 2019 ); though AMV in the 20th century may have been partly driven by aerosols, see Section 3.7.7 . Indeed, AMIP simulations better reproduce the observed multi-decadal variations of the global monsoon precipitation and circulation (Figure 3.17c,d). Y. Zhang et al. (2018) find that the multi-model ensemble mean trend of global land monsoon precipitation in historical simulations, dominated by anthropogenic aerosol forcing contributions, emerges out of the 90% range of internally-driven trends in pre-industrial control simulations. However, it should be noted that CMIP5 models tend to under-represent the PDV magnitude ( Section 3.7.6 ), suggesting potential overconfidence in the detection of the forced signal. An observed enhancement in global summer monsoon precipitation since the 1980s is accompanied by an intensification of the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon circulation (Figure 3.17c,d). These trends appear to be at the extreme of the range of the CMIP6 historical simulation ensemble but are well captured by AMIP simulations (Figure 3.17c,d). While the precipitation increase is consistent with greenhouse gas forcing, the circulation intensification is opposite to the simulated response to greenhouse gas forcing, and these enhancements have been attributed to PDV and AMV ( Wang et al., 2013 ; Kamae et al., 2017 ).

In summary, while greenhouse gas increases acted to enhance the global land monsoon precipitation over the 20th century ( medium confidence ), consistent with projected future enhancement ( Section 4.5.1.5 ), this tendency was overwhelmed by anthropogenic aerosols from the 1950s to the 1980s, which contributed to weakening of global land summer monsoon precipitation intensity for this period ( medium confidence ). There is medium confidence that the intensification of global monsoon precipitation and Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon circulation since the 1980s is dominated by internal variability. These assessments are supported respectively by multi-model detection and attribution studies which find an important role for anthropogenic aerosols in the weakening trend, and studies that identify a role for AMV and PDV in inducing the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon circulation enhancement since the 1980s. Supported by multi-model simulations that are qualitatively consistent with proxy evidence, there is high confidence that orbital forcing contributed to higher Northern Hemisphere monsoon precipitation in the mid-Pliocene and mid-Holocene than pre-industrial. While CMIP5 models can capture the domain and precipitation intensity of the global monsoon, biases remain in their regional representations, and they are unsuccessful in quantitatively reproducing changes in paleo reconstructions ( high confidence ). CMIP6 models reproduce the domain and precipitation intensity of the global monsoon observed over the instrumental period better than CMIP5 models ( medium confidence ). However, CMIP5 and CMIP6 models fail to fully capture the variations of the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon circulation (Figure 3.17d), but there is low confidence in this assessment due to a lack of evidence in the literature.

3.3.3.3 Extratropical Jets, Storm Tracks and Blocking

Extratropical jets are wind maxima in the upper troposphere which are often associated with storms, blocking, and weather extremes. Blocking refers to long-lived, stationary high-pressure systems that are often associated with a poleward displacement of the jet, causing cold spells in winter and heatwaves in summer (e.g., Sousa et al., 2018 ). Sections 2.3.1.4.3, 8.3.2.7, and 11.7.2 discuss these features in more detail.

AR5 concluded that models were able to capture the general characteristics of extratropical cyclones and storm tracks, although it also noted that most models underestimated cyclone intensity, that biases in cyclone frequency were linked to biases in sea surface temperatures, and that resolution can play a significant role in the quality of the simulation of storms ( Flato et al., 2013 ). Similarly, AR5 found with high confidence that simulation of blocking was improved with increases in resolution. The AR5 did not specifically assess changes in Southern Hemisphere storm track characteristics or blocking.

For the North Pacific storm track CMIP6 simulations exhibit large remaining underestimations of cyclone frequencies during summer (June to August), which for the low-resolution models have essentially remained unchanged versus CMIP5, and there is only a small resolution dependence of this bias ( Priestley et al., 2020 ). During winter (December to February), both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models tend to place the North Pacific storm track too far equatorward (M. Yang et al., 2018 ; Priestley et al., 2020 ), leading to an overestimation of cyclones between 30°N and 40°N in the Pacific and an underestimation to the north of this. Both low- and high-resolution models show this pattern, but low-resolution models generally simulate fewer cyclones throughout the North Pacific ( Priestley et al., 2020 ).

In winter, the North Atlantic storm track remains displaced to the south and east in many models ( Harvey et al., 2020 ), leading to underestimation of cyclone frequencies near the North American coast and overestimation in the eastern North Atlantic. Higher-resolution CMIP6 models perform slightly better in this regard than low-resolution models. In summer (June to August), cyclone frequencies throughout the extratropical North Atlantic, which were substantially underestimated in CMIP5, have improved in CMIP6 high-resolution models. In low-resolution CMIP6 models, the problem is essentially unchanged ( Priestley et al., 2020 ); this is associated with generally underestimated variability of sea level pressure in CMIP models ( Harvey et al., 2020 ).

For the Southern Hemisphere (not considered in AR5), Priestley et al. (2020) find considerable improvement in the placement of the Southern Ocean storm track during summer (December to February) in CMIP6 models versus CMIP5, consistent with a more realistic annual mean surface wind maximum latitude in CMIP6 than in CMIP5 ( Goyal et al., 2021 ). Relative to CMIP5, both low- and high-resolution CMIP6 models have increased track densities south of about 55°S and decreased track densities between about 40°S and 55°S, in better agreement with observations than CMIP5 models ( Parsons et al., 2016 ; Patterson et al., 2019 ). CMIP5 models and high-resolution CMIP6 models simulate a storm track that is positioned too far equatorward, although the bias is smaller in the high-resolution models. By contrast, the low-resolution CMIP6 models simulate a storm track that is slightly too far poleward on average ( Priestley et al., 2020 ). In winter (June to August), the biases found in CMIP5 are only slightly improved in CMIP6, with models continuing to underestimate the broad maximum cyclone track density in the south-eastern Indian Ocean and overestimate the minimum density in the south-western South Pacific ( Priestley et al., 2020 ).

There is only one contiguous blocking region in the Southern Hemisphere, with the blocking frequency maximizing in the South Pacific and minimizing in the southern Indian Ocean regions ( Parsons et al., 2016 ; Patterson et al., 2019 ). CMIP5 simulations agree relatively well with ERA-Interim in this region regarding the distribution of blocking events ( Parsons et al., 2016 ). Individual models exhibit considerable biases in the blocking frequency; however only in austral summer do Patterson et al. (2019) find a systematic, multi-model underestimation of the blocking frequency in and around the Tasman Sea. The blocking frequency is anticorrelated with the amplitude of the SAM. Ozone depletion, through stratosphere-troposphere coupling, may have caused an increase in the blocking frequency in the South Atlantic sector ( Dennison et al., 2016 ); this finding requires confirmation using a multi-model approach.

In addition to inadequate resolution, blocking and storm track biases in both hemispheres also result from mean state biases, in particular, biases related to the parameterization of orographic effects and to the misrepresentation of the Gulf Stream SST front ( Anstey et al., 2013 ; Berckmans et al., 2013 ; Davini and D’Andrea, 2016 ; O’Reilly et al., 2016a ; Pithan et al., 2016 ; Schiemann et al., 2017 ). Nonetheless overall SST biases have been suggested to have only a weak relevance to blocking ( Davini and D’Andrea, 2016 ).

( Section 2.3.1.4.3 assesses that the total number of extratropical cyclones has likely increased since the 1980s in the Northern Hemisphere ( low confidence ), but with fewer deep cyclones particularly in summer. This observed reduction in cyclone activity by about 4% per decade in the Northern Hemisphere in summer ( Chang et al., 2016 ; Section 2.3.1.4.3 ) may be associated with human-induced warming. CMIP5 historical simulations generally reproduce a reduction but underestimate its magnitude ( Chang et al., 2016 ). Furthermore, feedback mechanisms associated with clouds may be responsible for substantial inter-model spread ( Chang et al., 2016 ; Voigt and Shaw, 2016 ). In boreal winter, recent studies have suggested a potential influence of the rapid Arctic warming on observed intensification of Northern Hemisphere storm track activity in the past few decades, while other studies question this possibility (Cross-Chapter Box 10.1).

In summary, there is low confidence that an observed decrease in the frequency of Northern Hemisphere summertime extratropical cyclones is linked to anthropogenic influence. In the Southern Hemisphere, there is high confidence that human influence, in the form of ozone depletion, has contributed to the observed poleward shift of the jet in austral summer, while confidence is low for human influence on historical blocking activity. The low confidence statements are due to the limited number of studies available. The shift of the Southern Hemisphere jet is correlated with modulations of the SAM ( Section 3.7.2 ). There is medium confidence in model performance regarding the simulation of the extratropical jets, storm track and blocking activity, with increased resolution sometimes corresponding to better performance, but important shortcomings remain, particularly for the Euro-Atlantic sector of the Northern Hemisphere. Nonetheless, synthesizing across Sections 3.3.3.1–3.3.3.3, there is high confidence that CMIP6 models capture the general characteristics of the tropospheric large-scale circulation.

3.3.3.4 Sudden Stratospheric Warming Activity

Sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) are stratospheric weather events associated with anomalously high temperatures at high latitudes persisting from days to weeks. Section 2.3.1.4.5 discusses the definition and observational aspects of SSWs. SSWs are often associated with anomalous weather conditions, for example, winter cold spells, in the lower atmosphere (e.g., Butler et al., 2015 ; Baldwin et al., 2021 ).

Seviour et al. (2016) found that stratosphere-resolving CMIP5 models, on average, reproduce the observed frequency of vortex splits (one form of SSWs) but with a wide range of model-specific biases. Models that produce a better mean state of the polar vortex also tend to produce a more realistic SSW frequency ( Seviour et al., 2016 ). The mean sea level pressure anomalies occurring in CMIP5 model simulations when an SSW is underway, however, differ substantially from those in reanalyses ( Seviour et al., 2016 ). Unlike stratosphere-resolving models, models with limited stratospheric resolution, which make up more than half of the CMIP5 ensemble, underestimate the frequency of SSWs ( Osprey et al., 2013 ; J. Kim et al., 2017 ). Taguchi (2017) found a general underestimation in CMIP5 models of the frequency of ‘major’ SSWs (which are associated with a break-up of the polar vortex), an aspect of an under-representation in those models of dynamical variability in the stratosphere. Wu and Reichler (2020) found that finer vertical resolution in the stratosphere and a model top above the stratopause tend to be associated with a more realistic SSW frequency in CMIP5 and CMIP6 models.

Some studies find an increase in the frequency of SSWs under increasing greenhouse gases (e.g., Schimanke et al., 2013 ; Young et al., 2013 ; J. Kim et al., 2017 ). However, this behaviour is not robust across ensembles of chemistry-climate models ( Mitchell et al., 2012 ; Ayarzagüena et al., 2018 ; Rao and Garfinkel, 2021 ). There is an absence of studies specifically focusing on simulated trends in SSWs during recent decades, and the short record and substantial decadal variability yields low confidence in any observed trends in the occurrence of SSW events in the Northern Hemisphere winter ( Section 2.3.1.4.5 ). Such an absence of a trend and large variability would also be consistent with a recent reconstruction of SSWs extending back to 1850, based on sea level pressure observations ( Domeisen, 2019 ), although this time series has limitations as it is not based on direct observations of SSWs.

In summary, an anthropogenic influence on the frequency or other aspects of SSWs has not yet been robustly detected. There is low confidence in the ability of models to simulate any such trends over the historical period because of large natural interannual variability and also due to substantial common biases in the simulated mean state affecting the simulated frequency of SSWs.

3.4 Human Influence on the Cryosphere Expand section

3.4.1 sea ice, 3.4.1.1 arctic sea ice.

Differences in sea ice loss among the models (Figure 3.20) have been attributed to a number of factors (see also Section 9.3.1.1). These factors include the late 20th century simulated sea ice state ( Massonnet et al., 2012 ), the magnitude of changing ocean heat transport ( Mahlstein and Knutti, 2011 ), and the rate of global warming (e.g., Gregory et al., 2002 ; Mahlstein and Knutti, 2012 ; Rosenblum and Eisenman, 2017 ). Sea ice thermodynamic considerations indicate that the magnitude of sea ice variability and loss depends on ice thickness ( Bitz, 2008 ; Massonnet et al., 2018 ) and hence the climatology simulated by different models may influence their simulated sea ice trends ( medium confidence ), as indicated by the regression lines in Figure 3.20.

An important consideration in comparing Arctic sea ice loss in models and observations is the role of internal variability ( medium confidence ). Using ensemble simulations from a single model, Kay et al. (2011) suggested that internal variability could account for about half of the observed September ice loss. More recently, large ensemble simulations have been performed with many more ensemble members ( Kay et al., 2015 ). These enable a more robust characterization of internal variability in the presence of forced anthropogenic change. Using such large ensembles, some studies discussed the influence of internal variability on Arctic sea ice trends ( Swart et al., 2015 ). Song et al. (2016) also compared the trends in the forced and unforced simulations using multiple climate models and found that internal variability explains about 40% of the observed September sea ice melting trend, supporting previous studies ( Stroeve et al., 2012 ). Based on the large ensembles of CESM1 and CanESM2, the September Arctic sea ice extent variance first increases and then decreases as SIE declines from its pre-industrial value ( Kirchmeier-Young et al., 2017 ; Mueller et al., 2018 ) consistent with previous work ( Goosse et al., 2009 ), but neither study found a strong sensitivity of detection and attribution results to the change in variability. Further work has indicated that internally-driven summer atmospheric circulation trends with enhanced atmospheric ridges over Greenland and the Arctic Ocean, which project on the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation ( Section 3.7.1 ), play an important role in the observed Arctic sea ice loss ( Hanna et al., 2015 ; Ding et al., 2017 ). A fingerprint analysis using the CESM large ensemble suggests that this internal variability accounts for 40–50% of the observed September Arctic sea ice decline ( Ding et al., 2019 ; England et al., 2019 ). Internally-generated decadal tropical variability and associated atmospheric teleconnections were suggested to have contributed to the changing atmospheric circulation in the Arctic and the associated rapid sea ice decline from 2000 to 2014 ( Meehl et al., 2018 ).

Some recent studies evaluated the human contribution to recent record minimum SIE events in the Arctic. Analysing CMIP5 simulations, Zhang and Knutson (2013) found that the observed 2012 record low in September Arctic SIE is inconsistent with internal climate variability alone. Based on several large ensembles, Kirchmeier-Young et al. (2017) concluded that the observed 2012 SIE minimum cannot be reproduced in a simulation excluding human influence. Fučkar et al. (2016) showed that climate change contributed to the record low March Arctic SIE in 2015, which was accompanied by the record minimum SIE in the Sea of Okhotsk ( Paik et al., 2017 ).

Based on the new attribution studies since AR5, we conclude that it is very likely that anthropogenic forcing mainly due to greenhouse gas increases was the main driver of Arctic sea ice loss since 1979. Increases in anthropogenic aerosols have offset part of the greenhouse gas induced Arctic sea ice loss since the 1950s ( medium confidence ). Despite large differences in the mean sea ice state in the Arctic, Arctic sea ice loss is captured by all CMIP5 and CMIP6 models. Nonetheless, large inter-model differences in the Arctic sea ice decline remain, limiting our ability to quantify forced changes and internal variability contributions.

3.4.1.2 Antarctic Sea Ice

AR5 concluded that ‘there is low confidence in the attribution of the observed increase in Antarctic SIE since 1979’ ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ) due to the limited understanding of the external forcing contribution as well as the role of internal variability. Based on a difference between the first and last decades, Antarctic sea ice cover exhibited a small increase in summer and winter over the 1979–2017 period ( Section 2.3.2.1.2 , and Figures 3.20 and 3.21). However, these changes are not statistically significant and starting in late 2016, anomalously low sea ice area has been observed ( Section 2.3.2.1.2 ). The mean hemispheric sea ice changes result from much larger, but partially compensating, regional changes with increases in the western Ross Sea and Weddell Sea and declines in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas ( Hobbs et al., 2016 ). Observed regional trends have been particularly large in austral autumn (see Section 2.3.2.1.2 , and also Section 9.3.2.1 for more details of regional changes and related physical processes). Starting in austral spring of 2016, the ice extent decreased strongly ( Turner et al., 2017 ) and has since remained anomalously low (Figure 3.21 and Figure 2.20). This decrease has been associated with anomalous atmospheric conditions associated with teleconnections from warming in the eastern Indian Ocean and a negative Southern Annular Mode ( Chenoli et al., 2017 ; Stuecker et al., 2017 ; Schlosser et al., 2018 ; Meehl et al., 2019 ; Purich and England, 2019 ; G. Wang et al., 2019 ). A decadal-scale warming of the near-surface ocean that resulted from strengthened westerlies may also have contributed to and helped to sustain the sea ice loss ( Meehl et al., 2019 ). Before satellites and on even longer time scales, very limited observational data and proxy coverage leads to low confidence in all aspects of Antarctic sea ice (Sections 2.3.2.1.2 and 9.3.2.1).

CMIP5 climate models generally simulate Antarctic sea ice loss over the satellite era since 1979 ( Mahlstein et al., 2013 ; Turner et al., 2013 ) in contrast to the observed change, and CMIP6 models also simulate Antarctic ice loss ( Roach et al., 2020 ; Figure 3.20 and 3.21). A number of studies have suggested that this discrepancy may be in part due to the role of internal variability in the observed change ( Mahlstein et al., 2013 ; Polvani and Smith, 2013 ; Zunz et al., 2013 ; Meehl et al., 2016c ; Turner et al., 2016 ), including teleconnections associated with tropical Pacific variability ( Meehl et al., 2016c ) and changing surface conditions resulting from multi-decadal ocean circulation variations ( Singh et al., 2019 ). However, when the spatial pattern is considered, trends in the summer and autumn (from 1979–2005) appear outside the range of internal variability ( Hobbs et al., 2015 ). This suggests that the models may exhibit an unrealistic simulation of the Antarctic sea ice forced response or the internal variability of the system. Discrepancies among the models in simulated sea ice variability ( Zunz et al., 2013 ), the sea ice climatological state ( Roach et al., 2018 ), upper ocean temperature trends ( Schneider and Deser, 2018 ), Southern Hemisphere westerly wind trends ( Purich et al., 2016 ), or the sea ice response to Southern Annular Mode variations ( Ferreira et al., 2014 ; Holland et al., 2017 ; Kostov et al., 2017 ; Landrum et al., 2017 ) may all play some role in explaining these differences with the observed trends. Increased fresh water fluxes caused by mass loss of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (either by melting at the front of ice shelves or via iceberg calving) have been suggested as a possible mechanism driving the multi-decadal Antarctic sea ice expansion ( Bintanja et al., 2015 ; Pauling et al., 2016 ) but there is a lack of consensus on this mechanism’s impacts ( Pauling et al., 2017 ). A recent study based on a decadal prediction system suggests that initializing the state of the Antarctic Bottom Water cell allows the system to reproduce the observed Antarctic sea ice increase ( Zhang et al., 2017 ), consistent with the suggestion that multi-decadal variability associated with variations in deep convection has contributed to the observed increase in Antarctic sea ice since 1979 ( Latif et al., 2013 ; Zhang et al., 2017 ; L. Zhang et al., 2019 ) (see also Section 9.3.2.1).

There have been several studies that aimed to identify causes of the observed Antarctic SIE changes. Gagné et al. (2015) assessed the consistency of observed and simulated changes in Antarctic SIE for an extended period using recovered satellite-based estimates, and found that the observed trends since the mid-1960s are not inconsistent with model simulated trends. Studies based on the satellite period also indicate that the observed trends are largely within the range of simulated internal variability ( Hobbs et al., 2016 ). A few distinct factors that led to the weak signal-to-noise ratio in Antarctic SIE trends have been further identified, which include large multi-decadal variability ( Monselesan et al., 2015 ), the short observational record (e.g., Abram et al., 2013 ), and the limited model performance at representing the complex Antarctic climate system as discussed above ( Bintanja et al., 2013 ; Uotila et al., 2014 ). The short period of comprehensive satellite observations, beginning in 1979, makes it challenging to set the observed increase between 1979 and 2015, or the subsequent decrease, in a long-term context, and to assess whether the difference in trend between observations and models, which mostly simulate long-term decreases, is systematic or a rare expression of internal variability on decadal to multi-decadal time scales.

In conclusion, the observed small increase in Antarctic sea ice extent during the satellite era is not generally captured by global climate models, and there is low confidence in attributing the causes of the change.

3.4.2 Snow Cover

Seasonal snow cover is a defining climate feature of the northern continents. It is therefore of considerable interest that climate models correctly simulate this feature. It is discussed in more detail in Section 9.5.3, and observational aspects of snow cover are assessed in Section 2.3.2.2 .

CMIP6 models improve on CMIP5 models in producing slightly increased SCE versus CMIP5, correcting the low bias in CMIP5 ( Mudryk et al., 2020 ). The linear relationship noted above between GSAT and SCE also exists in CMIP6 ( Mudryk et al., 2020 ). Like CMIP5, the CMIP6 models capture the negative trend in spring snow cover that has occurred in recent decades (Figure 3.22). However, the median CMIP6 model now produces slightly stronger post-1981 declines in the March to April mean SCE than the CMIP5 median ( Mudryk et al., 2020 ). Until about 1980, the models produce a generally stable March to April SCE, but after that a substantial decline, reaching a loss of about 2 × 10 6 km 2 in 2012–2017 relative to the 1971–2000 average. Compared to earlier studies which found that models underestimate observed trends for the 1979–2005 period ( Brutel-Vuilmet et al., 2013 ), both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models show improved agreement with the observations over the period to 2017 (Figure 3.22). One remaining concern is a failure of most CMIP6 models to correctly represent the relationship between snow cover extent and snow mass, reflecting too slow seasonal increases and decreases of SCE in the models ( Mudryk et al., 2020 ).

Several CMIP5 and CMIP6 based studies have consistently attributed the observed Northern Hemisphere spring SCE changes ( Section 2.3.2.2 ) to anthropogenic influences ( Rupp et al., 2013 ; Najafi et al., 2016 ; Paik and Min, 2020 ), with the observed changes being found to be inconsistent with natural variability alone. Similarly, spring snow thickness (Snow Water Equivalent) changes on the scale of the Northern Hemisphere have been attributed to greenhouse gas forcing ( Jeong et al., 2017 ). Using individual forcing simulations from multiple CMIP6 models, Paik and Min (2020) detected greenhouse gas influence in the observed decrease of early spring SCE between 1925 and 2019, which was found to be separable from the responses to other forcings.

In summary, it is very likely that anthropogenic influence contributed to the observed reductions in Northern Hemisphere springtime snow cover since 1950. CMIP6 models better represent the seasonality and geographical distribution of snow cover than CMIP5 simulations ( high confidence ). Both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models simulate strong declines in spring SCE during recent years, in general agreement with observations, causing the multi-model mean decreasing trend in spring SCE to now better agree with observations than in earlier evaluations. Evidence has yet to emerge that interactions between vegetation and snow, found problematic in CMIP5, have improved in CMIP6 models (Section 9.5.3). Such deficiencies in the representation of snow in climate models mean there is medium confidence in the simulation of snow cover over the northern continents in CMIP6 model simulations. The models consistently link snow extent to surface air temperature (Figure 9.24). With warming of near-surface air linked to anthropogenic influence, and particularly to greenhouse gas increases ( Section 3.3.1.1 ), this provides additional evidence that reductions in snow cover are also caused by human activity.

3.4.3 Glaciers and Ice Sheets

While ( Chapter 9 (Sections 9.4 and 9.5) discusses process understanding for glaciers and ice sheets, as well as evaluation of global and regional-scale glacier and ice-sheet models, our focus here is on the attribution of large-scale changes in glaciers and ice sheets. Land ice in the form of glaciers has been included in CMIP climate and Earth system models as components of the land surface models for many years. However, their representation is simplified and is omitted altogether in the less complex modelling systems. In CMIP3 ( Meehl et al., 2007 ) and CMIP5 ( Taylor et al., 2012 ) land ice area fraction, a component of land surface models, was defined as a time-independent quantity, and in most model configurations was preset at the simulation initialization as a permanent land feature. In CMIP6 considerable progress has been made in improving and evaluating the representation of modelled land ice. For glaciers, an example is the expansion of the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model to enable elevated tiles, and hence more accurately simulate the altitudinal atmospheric effects on glaciers ( Shannon et al., 2019 ). Moreover, standalone glacier models have now been systematically compared in GlacierMIP ( Hock et al., 2019a ; Marzeion et al., 2020 ). The Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets were absent in global climate models that pre-date CMIP6 ( Eyring et al., 2016a ), however some preliminary analyses that used results from CMIP5 to drive standalone ice-sheet models were included in AR5 ( Church et al., 2013a ). For the first time in CMIP, the latest CMIP6 phase includes a coordinated effort to simulate temporally evolving ice sheets within the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6; Box 9.3; Nowicki et al., 2016 ). Our understanding of aspects of the global water storage contained in glaciers and ice sheets, and their contribution to sea-level rise, has improved since AR5 and SROCC ( Hock et al., 2019b ; Meredith et al., 2019 ) both in models and observations (see assessment of observations and model evaluation for the Greenland Ice Sheet in Sections 2.3.2.4.1 and 9.4.1; Antarctica in Sections 2.3.2.4.2 and 9.4.2; and glaciers in Sections 2.3.2.3 and 9.5.1).

3.4.3.1 Glaciers

Glaciers are defined as perennial surface land ice masses independent of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets (Sections 9.5 and 2.3.2.3). The AR5 assessed that anthropogenic influence had likely contributed to the retreat of glaciers observed since the 1960s ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ), based on a high level of scientific understanding and robust estimates of observed mass loss, internal variability, and glacier response to climatic drivers. The SROCC ( Hock et al., 2019b ) concluded that atmospheric warming was very likely the primary driver of glacier recession.

Simulations of glacier mass changes under climate change rely on glacier models driven by climate model output, often in collaborative research efforts such as GlacierMIP ( Hock et al., 2019a ; Marzeion et al., 2020 ). The GlacierMIP project is a systematic coordinated modelling effort designed to further understanding of glacier loss using global models. While the low resolution and remaining biases of climate model-derived boundary forcing data is a limitation, the release of the Randolph Glacier Inventory ( Pfeffer et al., 2014 ; RGI Consortium, 2017 ) has supported more sophisticated, systematic and comprehensive modelling of glaciers worldwide ( Hock et al., 2019a ).

A regional study considering 85 Northern Hemisphere glacier systems concluded that there is a discernible human influence on glacier mass balance, with glacier model simulations driven by CMIP5 historical and greenhouse gas-only simulations showing a glacier mass loss, whereas those driven by natural-only forced simulations showed a net glacier growth ( Hirabayashi et al., 2016 ). In addition, a study of the role of climate change in glacier retreat using a simple mass-balance model for 37 glaciers worldwide, concluded that observed length changes would not have occurred without anthropogenic climate change, with observed length variations exceeding those associated with internal variability by several standard deviations in many cases ( Roe et al., 2017 ). Roe et al. (2021) used the same model to estimate that at least 85% of cumulative glacier mass loss since 1850 is attributable to anthropogenic influence. While Marzeion et al. (2014) found that anthropogenic influence contributed only 25 ± 35% of glacier mass loss for the period 1851–2010, their naturally-forced simulations exhibited a substantial negative mass balance, which Roe et al. (2021) argued is unrealistic. Moreover, Marzeion et al. (2014) estimated that anthropogenic influence contributed 69 ± 24% of glacier mass loss for the period 1991 to 2010, consistent with a progressively increasing fraction of mass loss attributable to anthropogenic influence found by Roe et al. (2021) .

In summary, considering together the SROCC assessment that atmospheric warming was very likely the primary driver of glacier recession, the results of Roe et al. (2017, 2021) and our assessment of the dominant role of anthropogenic influence in driving atmospheric warming ( Section 3.3.1 ), we conclude that human influence is very likely the main driver of the near-universal retreat of glaciers globally since the 1990s.

3.4.3.2 Ice Sheets

3.4.3.2.1 greenland ice sheet.

The AR5 assessed that it is likely that anthropogenic forcing contributed to the surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet since 1993 ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). The SROCC did not directly assess the attribution of Greenland Ice Sheet change to anthropogenic forcing, but it did assess with medium confidence that summer melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet has increased to a level unprecedented over at least the last 350 years, which is two-to-fivefold the pre-industrial level (see also Trusel et al., 2018 ).

( Section 2.3.2.4.1 assesses that Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss began in the latter half of the 19th century and that the rate of loss has increased substantially since the turn of the 21st century ( high confidence ), and also notes that integration of proxy evidence and modelling indicates that the last time the rate of mass loss was similar to the 20th century rate was during the early Holocene. Models of Greenland Ice Sheet evolution are evaluated in detail in Section 9.4.1.2, which assesses that there is overall medium confidence in these models. Model evaluation of surface mass balance changes over the Greenland Ice Sheet, including regional aspects, is also assessed in Atlas.11.2.3.

Detection and attribution studies of change in the Greenland Ice Sheet remain challenging ( Kjeldsen et al., 2015 ; Bamber et al., 2019 ). This is in part due to the short observational record ( Shepherd et al., 2012 , 2018, 2020; Bamber et al., 2018 ; Cazenave et al., 2018 ; Mouginot et al., 2019 ; Rignot et al., 2019 ) and the challenges this poses to the evaluation of modelling efforts (Section 9.4.1.2). The latter require not only dynamic ice-sheet models, but also appropriate atmospheric and oceanic conditions to use as a boundary forcing to drive the models ( Nowicki and Seroussi, 2018 ; Barthel et al., 2020 ). Nonetheless, new literature since AR5 finds that ice-sheet mass balance calculations using reanalysis-driven regional model simulations of surface mass balance are found to agree well with the observed decrease in ice-sheet mass over the past twenty years ( Fettweis et al., 2020 ; Sasgen et al., 2020 ; Tedesco and Fettweis, 2020 ), consistent with earlier studies ( Flato et al., 2013 ). These studies also show that the exceptional melt events observed in 2012 and 2019 were associated with exceptional atmospheric conditions ( Sasgen et al., 2020 ; Tedesco and Fettweis, 2020 ). These results support the finding that increased surface melting is associated with warming, although atmospheric circulation anomalies, including the summer North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and variations in snowfall play an important role in driving interannual variations (Section 9.4.1.1; Sasgen et al., 2020 ; Tedesco and Fettweis, 2020 ). Further, a coupled ice-sheet-climate model study found emergence of decreased surface mass balance prior to the present day in coastal locations in Greenland, which dominate the integrated surface mass balance ( Fyke et al., 2014 ), suggesting that observed variations in surface mass balance in these regions might be expected to be distinguishable from internal variability. A CMIP6 simulation of the historical period showed stable Greenland surface mass balance up to the 1990s, after which it declined due to increased melt and runoff, consistent with a downscaled reanalysis ( van Kampenhout et al., 2020 ). Further, all experts surveyed in a structured expert judgement exercise examining the causes of the increase in mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet over the last two decades ( Bamber et al., 2019 ) concluded that external forcing was responsible for at least 50% of the mass loss. A comparison of Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss trends from observations and AR5 model projections for the period 2007–2017 found that the magnitude of the observed surface mass balance trends was at the top of the AR5 assessed range, while mass loss due to changing ice dynamics was near the centre of the AR5 range ( Slater et al., 2020 ), providing further evidence of consistent anthropogenically-forced mass loss trends in models and observations.

Drawing together the evidence from the continued and strengthened observed mass loss, the agreement between anthropogenically forced climate simulations and observations, and historical and paleo evidence for the unusualness of the observed rate of surface melting and mass loss, we assess that it is very likely that human influence has contributed to the observed surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet over the past two decades, and that there is medium confidence in an anthropogenic contribution to recent overall mass loss from Greenland.

3.4.3.2.2 Antarctic Ice Sheet

AR5 assessed that there was low confidence in attributing the causes of the observed mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet since 1993 ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). The SROCC assessed that there is medium agreement but limited evidence of anthropogenic forcing of Antarctic mass balance through both surface mass balance and glacier dynamics. It further assessed that Antarctic ice loss is dominated by acceleration, retreat and rapid thinning of the major West Antarctic Ice Sheet outlet glaciers ( very high confidence ), driven by melting of ice shelves by warm ocean waters ( high confidence ). Based on updated observations, Chapter 2 assesses that there is very high confidence that the Antarctic Ice Sheet lost mass between 1992 and 2017, and that there is medium confidence that this mass loss has accelerated. Models of Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution are evaluated in detail in Section 9.4.2.2, which assesses that there is medium confidence in many ice-sheet processes in Antarctic Ice Sheet models, but low confidence in the ocean forcing affecting basal melt rates. CMIP5 and CMIP6 models perform similarly in their simulation of Antarctic surface mass balance (Section 9.4.2.2, Gorte et al., 2020 ). Model evaluation of surface mass balance over the Antarctic Ice Sheet, including regional aspects, is also assessed in Atlas.11.1.3.

Ice discharge around the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is strongly influenced by variability in basal melt ( Jenkins et al., 2018 ; Hoffman et al., 2019 ), in particular at decadal and longer time scales ( Snow et al., 2017 ). Basal melt rate variability can be induced by wind-driven ocean current changes, which may partly be of anthropogenic origin via greenhouse gas forcing ( Holland et al., 2019 ). Moreover, ice discharge losses from the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the 2007–2017 period are close to the centre of the model-based range projected in AR5 ( Slater et al., 2020 ). However, expert opinion differs as to whether recent Antarctic ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been driven primarily by external forcing or by internal variability, and there is no consensus ( Bamber et al., 2019 ). Anthropogenic influence on the Antarctic surface mass balance, which is expected to partially compensate for ice discharge losses through increases in snowfall, is currently masked by strong natural variability ( Previdi and Polvani, 2016 ; Bodart and Bingham, 2019 ), and observations suggest that it has been close to zero over recent years (see further discussion in Section 9.4.2.1; Slater et al., 2020 ).

Overall, there is medium agreement but limited evidence of anthropogenic influence on Antarctic mass balance through changes in ice discharge.

3.5 Human Influence on the Ocean Expand section

The global ocean plays an important role in the climate system, as it is responsible for transporting and storing large amounts of heat (Sections 3.5.1 and 9.2.2.1), freshwater (Sections 3.5.2 and 9.2.2.2) and carbon (Sections 3.6.2 and 5.2.1.3) that are exchanged with the atmosphere. Therefore, accurate ocean simulation in climate models is essential for the realistic representation of the climatic response to anthropogenic warming, including rates of warming, sea level rise and carbon uptake, and the representation of coupled modes of climate variability.

Ocean model development has advanced considerably since AR5 ( Section 1.5.3.1 ). Ongoing model developments since AR5 have focused on improving the realism of the simulated ocean in coupled models, with horizontal resolutions increasing to 10–100 km (from about 200 km in CMIP5), and increased vertical resolutions in many modelling systems of 0–1 m for near-surface levels (from the highest resolution of 10 m in CMIP5). These developments are aimed at improving the representation of the diurnal cycle and coupling to the atmosphere (e.g., Bernie et al., 2005 , 2007, 2008). General improvements to simulated ocean fidelity in response to increasing resolution are expected ( Hewitt et al., 2017 ), and the effects of model resolution on the fidelity of ocean models are discussed in more detail in Sections 9.2.2 and 9.2.4.

In this section we assess the global and basin-scale properties of the simulated ocean, with a focus on evaluation of the realism of simulated ocean properties, and the detection and attribution of human-induced changes in the ocean over the period of observational coverage. Observed changes to ocean temperature ( Section 2.3.3.1 ), salinity ( Section 2.3.3.2 ), sea level ( Section 2.3.3.3 ) and ocean circulation ( Section 2.3.3.4 ) are reported in Chapter 2. A more process-based assessment of ocean changes, alongside the assessment of variability and changes in ocean properties with spatial scales smaller than ocean basins, is presented in Chapter 9.

3.5.1 Ocean Temperature

Ocean temperature and ocean heat content are key physical variables considered for climate model evaluation and are primary indicators of a changing ocean climate. This section assesses the performance of climate models in representing the mean state ocean temperature and heat content ( Section 3.5.1.1 ), with a particular focus on the tropical oceans given the importance of air-sea coupling in these areas ( Section 3.5.1.2 ). This is followed by an assessment of detection and attribution studies of changes in ocean temperature and heat content ( Section 3.5.1.3 ). Changes in global surface temperature are assessed in Section 3.3.1.1 .

3.5.1.1 Sea Surface and Zonal Mean Ocean Temperature Evaluation

Overall, the simulated and observed trends in SST patterns are generally consistent for the historical period ( Olonscheck et al., 2020 ). The CMIP6 models generally represent the observed pattern of trends better than the CMIP5 models, and observed trends fall within the range of simulated trends over a larger area for CMIP6 models than for CMIP5 models ( Olonscheck et al., 2020 ).

Focusing on the deep ocean (>2000 m), the CMIP6 ensemble mean shows a prominent and consistent warm bias (Figure 3.25), in all basins except the equatorial and northern Pacific, which contrasts to a cold bias seen in CMIP5 ( Flato et al., 2013 ). We note that while an updated observational temperature dataset is used in this assessment (WOA09 was used in AR5, while WOA18, 1981–2010 is used in AR6), the deep-ocean warm bias remains and is approaching double the magnitude (about 0.5°C) of the equivalent CMIP5 multi-model mean bias, a feature which is particularly prominent in the Atlantic and southern Indian Oceans. Increased horizontal resolution as well as the choice of the vertical coordinate are reported to partly improve these biases in some models ( Adcroft et al., 2019 ; Rackow et al., 2019 ; Hewitt et al., 2020 ).

Since AR5, there has been growing evidence that the representation of mean surface and deeper ocean temperatures in coupled climate models can be improved by increasing the horizontal resolution both in the ocean and the atmosphere (e.g., Small et al., 2014 ; Hewitt et al., 2016 ; Iovino et al., 2016 ; Roberts et al., 2019 ). At an ocean resolution of around 1°, which is typical of CMIP6 models, some processes are parameterized rather than explicitly resolved, leading to a compromise in their dynamical representation. An increase in the model resolution allows for processes to be explicitly resolved, and can for example, enhance the simulation of eddies, thus improving simulated vertical eddy transport, and reducing temperature drifts in the deeper ocean ( Griffies et al., 2015 ; von Storch et al., 2016 ). For some models, the mean absolute error in ocean temperature below 500 m is smaller in the high resolution version compared to the low resolution version, particularly in eddy-active regions such as the North Atlantic ( Rackow et al., 2019 ). Increasing the horizontal resolution of individual climate models often leads to an overall decrease in the surface temperature biases over regions where they persisted through earlier CMIP generations, such as the central and western equatorial Pacific, as well as the North and tropical Atlantic (Figure 3.3e; Roberts et al., 2019 ; Hewitt et al., 2020 ). Despite this, as a group the four HighResMIP models included in Figures 3.3e and 3.24 do not on average show smaller SST biases than the CMIP6 multi-model mean, demonstrating the importance of factors other than resolution in contributing to SST biases.

In summary, there is little improvement in the multi-model mean sea surface and zonal mean ocean temperatures from CMIP5 to CMIP6 ( medium confidence ). Nevertheless, the CMIP6 models show a somewhat more realistic pattern of SST trends ( low confidence ).

3.5.1.2 Tropical Sea Surface Temperature Evaluation

3.5.1.2.1 tropical pacific ocean.

In CMIP5, mean state biases in the tropical Pacific Ocean including the excessive equatorial cold tongue, erroneous mean thermocline depth and slope along the equator remained but were improved relative to CMIP3 ( Flato et al., 2013 ). Misrepresentation of the interaction between the atmosphere and ocean via the Bjerknes feedback and vertical mixing parameterizations, and a bias in winds were among the suggested reasons for the persistent biases ( Li et al., 2014 ; Zhu and Zhang, 2018 ). Moving to CMIP6, a reduction of the cold bias in the equatorial cold tongue in the central Pacific is found on average in the CMIP6 models (Figure 3.24b; Grose et al., 2020 ; Planton et al., 2021 ), however, this reduced bias is not statistically significant when considered across the multi-model ensemble ( Planton et al., 2021 ). It is also noteworthy that the longitude of the 28°C isotherm is closer to observed in CMIP6 than in CMIP5, with a coincident reduction in the CMIP6 inter-model standard deviation ( Grose et al., 2020 ). The latter result implies that there is an improvement in the representation of the tropical Pacific mean state in CMIP6 models. Comparison of biases in individual HighResMIP models with biases in lower resolution versions of the same models indicates that there is no consistent improvement in SST biases in most of the equatorial Pacific with resolution (Figure 3.3e; Bock et al., 2020 ).

3.5.1.2.2 Tropical Atlantic Ocean

Fundamental features such as the mean zonal SST gradient in the tropical Atlantic were not reproduced in CMIP5 models. Studies have proposed that weaker than observed alongshore winds, underestimation of stratocumulus clouds, coarse model resolution, and insufficient oceanic cooling due to a deeper thermocline depth and weak vertical velocities at the base of the mixed layer in the eastern basin, underpinned these tropical Atlantic SST gradient biases ( Hourdin et al., 2015 ; Richter, 2015 ). The SST gradient biases still remain in CMIP6. On average the cold bias in the western part of the basin is reduced while the warm bias in the eastern part has slightly increased (Figure 3.24b,c; Richter and Tokinaga, 2020 ). Several CMIP6 models, however, display large reductions in biases of the zonal SST gradient, such that the eastern equatorial Atlantic warm SST bias and associated westerly wind biases are mostly eliminated in these models ( Richter and Tokinaga, 2020 ). The high resolution (HighResMIP) CMIP6 models show a better representation of the zonal SST gradient (Figure 3.24b,c), but some lower resolution models also perform well, suggesting that resolution is not the only factor responsible for biases in Tropical Atlantic SST ( Richter and Tokinaga, 2020 ).

3.5.1.2.3 Tropical Indian Ocean

The tropical Indian Ocean mean state is reasonably well simulated both in CMIP5 and CMIP6 (Figure 3.24b,c). However, CMIP5 models show a large spread in the thermocline depth, particularly in the equatorial part of the basin ( Saji et al., 2006 ; Fathrio et al., 2017b ), which has been linked to the parameterization of the vertical mixing and the wind structure, leading to a misrepresentation of the ventilation process in some models ( Schott et al., 2009 ; Richter, 2015 ; Shikha and Valsala, 2018 ). A common problem with the CMIP5 models is therefore a warm bias in the subsurface, mainly at depths around the thermocline, which is also apparent in the CMIP6 models (Figure 3.25g).

In the CMIP6 multi-model mean, the western tropical Indian Ocean shows a slightly larger warm bias compared to CMIP5 (Figure 3.24 b,c), which in part could be related to excessive supply of warm water from the Red Sea ( Grose et al., 2020 ; Semmler et al., 2020 ). The HighResMIP models show decreases in SST bias across the Indian Ocean with increasing resolution (Figure 3.3e; Bock et al., 2020 ), though as a group the SST biases in the HighResMIP models are no smaller than those of the full CMIP6 ensemble.

3.5.1.2.4 Summary

In summary, the structure and magnitude of multi-model mean ocean temperature biases have not changed substantially between CMIP5 and CMIP6 ( medium confidence ). Although biases remain in the latest generation models, the broad consistency between the observed and simulated basin-scale ocean properties suggests that CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are appropriate tools for investigating ocean temperature and ocean heat content responses to forcing. This also provides high confidence in the utility of CMIP-class models for detection and attribution studies, for both ocean heat content ( Section 3.5.1.3 ) and thermosteric sea level applications ( Section 3.5.3.2 ).

3.5.1.3 Ocean Heat Content Change Attribution

The ocean plays an important role as the Earth’s primary energy store. The AR5 and SROCC assessed that the ocean accounted for more than 90% of the Earth’s energy change since the 1970s ( Rhein et al., 2013 ; Bindoff et al., 2019 ). These assessments are consistent with recent studies assessed in Section 7.2 and Cross-Chapter Box 9.1, which find that 91% of the observed change in Earth’s total energy from 1971 to 2018 was stored in the ocean ( von Schuckmann et al., 2020 ). The AR5 concluded that anthropogenic forcing has very likely made a substantial contribution to ocean warming above 700 m, whereas below 700 m, limited measurements restricted the assessment of ocean heat content changes in AR5 and prevented a robust comparison between observations and models ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ).

The multi-model means of both CMIP5 and CMIP6 historical simulations forced with time varying natural and anthropogenic forcing shows robust increases in ocean heat content in the upper (0–700 m) and intermediate (700–2000 m) ocean ( high confidence ) (Figure 3.26; Cheng et al., 2016 , 2019 ; Gleckler et al., 2016 ; Bilbao et al., 2019 ; Tokarska et al., 2019 ). Temporary (<10 years) surface and subsurface cooling during and after large volcanic eruptions is also captured in the upper-ocean, and global mean ocean heat content ( Balmaseda et al., 2013 ). The ocean heat content increase is also reflected in the corresponding ocean thermal expansion which is a leading contributor to global mean sea level rise (Sections 3.5.3.2 and 9.2.4, and Box 9.1).

For the period 1971–2014, the rate of ocean heat uptake for the global ocean in the CMIP6 models is about 6.43 [2.08–8.66] ZJ yr –1 , with the upper, intermediate and deeper layers respectively accounting for 68%, 16% and 16% of the full depth global heat uptake (Figure 3.26). Overall, the simulated ocean heat content changes are consistent with the updated and improved observational analyses, within the very likely uncertainty range defined for each (see also ( Section 2.3.3.1 , Table 2.7; Domingues et al., 2008 ; Purkey and Johnson, 2010 ; Levitus et al., 2012 ; Good et al., 2013 ; Cheng et al., 2017 ; Ishii et al., 2017 ; Zanna et al., 2019 ) as well as with the ocean components of total Earth heating assessed in Section 7.2.2.2, Table 7.1. Nevertheless, large uncertainties remain, particularly in the deeper layers due to the poor temporal and spatial sampling coverage, particularly in the Atlantic, Southern and Indian Oceans ( Garry et al., 2019 ). The very likely ranges of the simulated trends for the full ocean depth and below 2000 m fall within the very likely range of observed uptake during the last two decades. In the intermediate layer, the multi-model ensemble mean mostly stays above the observed 5th–95th percentile range before the year 2000, and below that range after 2000. For the upper ocean, some individual model realizations show a reduced ocean heat content increase during the 1970s and 1980s, which is then compensated by a greater warming than the observations from the early 1990s. These discrepancies have been linked with a temporary increase in the Southern Ocean deep water formation rate, as well as with the models’ strong aerosol cooling effects and high equilibrium climate sensitivity (see also Section 7.5.6 and Box 7.2; Andrews et al., 2019 , 2020 ; Golaz et al., 2019 ; Dunne et al., 2020 ; Winton et al., 2020 ).

Nevertheless, simulations show that the rate of ocean heat uptake has doubled in the past few decades, when contrasted to the rate over the complete 20th century (Figure 3.26), with over a third of the accumulated heat stored below 700 m ( Cheng et al., 2016 , 2019 ; Gleckler et al., 2016 ; Durack et al., 2018 ). The Southern Ocean shows the strongest ocean heat uptake that penetrates to deeper layers (Section 9.2.3.2), whereas ocean heat content increases in the Pacific and Indian Oceans largely occur in the upper layers ( Bilbao et al., 2019 ).

Since AR5, the attribution of ocean heat content increases to anthropogenic forcing has been further supported by more detection and attribution studies. These studies have shown that contributions from natural forcing alone cannot explain the observed changes in ocean heat content in either the upper or intermediate ocean layers, and a response to anthropogenic forcing is clearly detectable in ocean heat content ( Gleckler et al., 2016 ; Bilbao et al., 2019 ; Tokarska et al., 2019 ). Moreover, a response to greenhouse gas forcing is detectable independently of the response to other anthropogenic forcings ( Bilbao et al., 2019 ; Tokarska et al., 2019 ), which has offset part of the greenhouse gas induced warming. Further evidence is provided by the agreement between observed and simulated changes in global thermal expansion associated with the ocean heat content increase when both natural and anthropogenic forcings are included in the simulations ( Section 3.5.3.2 ), though internal variability plays a larger role in driving basin-scale thermosteric sea level trends ( Bilbao et al., 2015 ). Over the Southern Ocean, warming is detectable over the late 20th century and is largely attributable to greenhouse gases ( Swart et al., 2018 ; Hobbs et al., 2021 ), while other anthropogenic forcings such as ozone depletion have been shown to mitigate the warming in some of the CMIP5 simulations ( Swart et al., 2018 ; Hobbs et al., 2021 ). The use of the mean temperature above a fixed isotherm rather than fixed depth further strengthens a robust detection of the anthropogenic response in the upper ocean ( Weller et al., 2016 ), and better accounting for internal variability in the upper ocean ( Rathore et al., 2020 ), helps explain reported hemispheric asymmetry in ocean heat content change ( Durack et al., 2014b ).

In summary, there is strong evidence for an improved understanding of the observed global ocean heat content increase. It is extremely likely that human influence was the main driver of the ocean heat content increase observed since the 1970s, which extends into the deeper ocean ( very high confidence ). Updated observations, like model simulations, show that warming extends throughout the entire water column ( high confidence ).

3.5.2 Ocean Salinity

While ocean assessments have primarily focused on temperature changes, improved observational salinity products since the early 2000s have supported more assessment of long-term ocean salinity change and variability from AR4 ( Bindoff et al., 2007 ) to AR5 across both models and observations ( Flato et al., 2013 ; Rhein et al., 2013 ). The AR5 assessed that it was very likely that anthropogenic forcings have made a discernible contribution to surface and subsurface ocean salinity changes since the 1960s. The SROCC augmented these insights, noting that observed high latitude freshening and warming have very likely made the surface ocean less dense with a stratification increase of between 2.18% and 2.42% from 1970 to 2017 ( Bindoff et al., 2019 ). A recent observational analysis has expanded on these assessments, suggesting a very marked summertime density contrast enhancement across the mixed layer base of 6.2–11.6% per decade, driven by changes in temperature and salinity, which is more than six times larger than previous estimates ( Sallée et al., 2021 ). An idealized ocean modelling study suggests that the enhanced stratification can account for a third of the salinity enhancement signal since 1990 ( Zika et al., 2018 ). Thus, there has been an expansion of observed global- and basin-scale salinity change assessment literature since AR5, with many new studies reproducing the key patterns of long-term salinity change reported in AR5 ( Rhein et al., 2013 ), and linking these through modelling studies to coincident changes in evaporation–precipitation patterns at the ocean surface (Sections 2.3.1.3, 3.3.2, 8.2.2.1 and 9.2.2).

Unlike SSTs, simulated sea surface salinity (SSS) does not provide a direct feedback to the atmosphere. However, some recent work has identified indirect radiative feedbacks through sea-salt aerosol interactions ( Ayash et al., 2008 ; Amiri-Farahani et al., 2019 ; Z. Wang et al., 2019 ) that can act to strengthen tropical cyclones, and increase precipitation ( Balaguru et al., 2012 , 2016 ; Grodsky et al., 2012 ; Reul et al., 2014 ; Jiang et al., 2019 ). The absence of a direct feedback is one of the primary reasons why salinity simulation is difficult to constrain in ocean modelling systems, and why deviations from the observed near-surface salinity mean state between models and observations are often apparent ( Durack et al., 2012 ; Shi et al., 2017 ).

3.5.2.1 Sea Surface and Depth-profile Salinity Evaluation

When compared to the routine assessment of simulated SST, simulated SSS has not received the same research attention at global- to basin-scales. For CMIP3, there was reasonable agreement between the basin-scale patterns of salinity, with a comparatively fresher Pacific when contrasted to the salty Atlantic, and basin salinity maxima features aligning well with the corresponding atmospheric evaporation minus precipitation field ( Durack et al., 2012 ). Similar features are also reproduced in CMIP5 along with realistic variability in the upper layers, but less variability than observations at 300 m and deeper, especially in the poorly sampled Antarctic region ( Pierce et al., 2012 ). In a regional study, only considering the Indian Ocean, CMIP5 SSS was assessed and it was shown that model biases were primarily linked to biases in the precipitation field, with ocean circulation biases playing a secondary role ( Fathrio et al., 2017a ). The sea surface salinity bias in CMIP6 models is shown in Figure 3.23b.

For the first time in AR5, alongside global zonal mean temperature, global zonal mean salinity bias with depth was assessed for the CMIP5 models. This showed a strong upper ocean (<300 m) negative salinity (fresh) bias of order 0.3 PSS-78, with a tendency toward a positive salinity (salty) bias (<0.25 PSS-78) in the Northern Hemisphere intermediate layers (200–3000 m) ( Flato et al., 2013 ). These biases are also present in CMIP6, albeit with slightly smaller magnitudes (Figure 3.25). Here we expand the global zonal mean bias assessment to consider the three independent ocean basins individually, which allows for an assessment as to which basin biases are dominating the global zonal mean. The basin with the most pronounced biases is the Atlantic, with a strong upper ocean (<300 m) fresh bias, of order 0.3 PSS-78 just like the global zonal mean, and a marked subsurface salinity bias that exceeds 0.5 PSS-78 in equatorial waters between 400–1000 m.

The Pacific Ocean shares the strongest similarity to the global bias, with a similar upper ocean (<300 m) fresh bias. Lower magnitude positive salinity biases (about 0.3 PSS-78) are also present in both hemispheres between 200 and 3000 m, and deeper in the Southern Hemisphere (Figure 3.25). The Indian Ocean shows similar features to the Southern Hemisphere Pacific, with a marked upper ocean (<500 m) fresh bias of order 0.3 PSS-78, and a strong near-surface positive bias of order 0.4 PSS-78 associated with the Arabian Sea (Figure 3.25).

For the Southern Ocean in CMIP5, considerable fresh biases exist through the water column, and are most pronounced in the ventilated layers representing the subtropical mode and intermediate water masses ( Sallée et al., 2013 ). A fresh bias in upper and intermediate layers of comparable magnitude is also seen in CMIP6 (Figure 3.25). The structure of the biases in the CMIP6 multi-model mean (which averages across many simulations with differing subsurface geographies and differing Southern Ocean salinity biases ( Beadling et al., 2020 )) is similar to that evident in the CMIP5 multi-model mean, but with slightly smaller magnitudes. The Arctic Ocean also on average exhibits a surface-enhanced fresh bias in the upper ocean (Figure 3.25), which is much larger than its Southern Hemisphere counterpart.

In summary, the structure of the salinity biases in the multi-model mean has not changed substantially between CMIP5 and CMIP6 ( medium confidence ), though there is limited evidence that the magnitude of subsurface biases has been reduced. Biases are sufficiently small to provide confidence in the utility of CMIP-class models for detection and attribution of ocean salinity.

3.5.2.2 Salinity Change Attribution

AR5 concluded that it was very likely that anthropogenic forcings had made a discernible contribution to surface and subsurface ocean salinity changes since the 1960s ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ; Rhein et al., 2013 ). It highlighted that the spatial patterns of salinity trends, and the mean fields of salinity and evaporation minus precipitation are all similar, with an enhancement to Atlantic Ocean salinity and freshening in the Pacific and Southern Oceans. Since AR5 all subsequent work on assessing observed and modelled salinity changes has confirmed these results.

Climate change detection and attribution studies have considered salinity, with the first of these assessed in AR5 ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). Since that time, the positive detection conclusions ( Stott et al., 2008 ; Pierce et al., 2012 ; Terray et al., 2012 ) have been supported by a number of more recent and independent assessments which have reproduced the multi-decadal basin-scale patterns of change in observations and models (Figures 3.27 and 3.28; Durack et al., 2014a ; Durack, 2015 ; Levang and Schmitt, 2015 ; Skliris et al., 2016 ). Observed depth-integrated basin responses, contrasting the Pacific and Atlantic basins (freshening Pacific and enhanced salinity Atlantic) were also shown to be replicated in most historical (natural and anthropogenically forced) simulations, with this basin contrast absent in CMIP5 and CMIP6 natural-only simulations that exclude anthropogenic forcing ( Durack et al., 2014a ; Figure 3.28).

While observational sparsity considerably limits quantification of regional changes, a recent study by Friedman et al. (2017) assessed salinity changes in the Atlantic Ocean from 1896 to 2013 and confirmed the pattern of mid-to-low latitude enhanced salinity and high latitude North Atlantic freshening over this period exists even after accounting for the effects of the NAO and AMO.

Considering the bulk of evidence, it is extremely likely that human influence has contributed to observed near-surface and subsurface salinity changes across the globe since the mid-20th century. All available multi-decadal assessments have confirmed that the associated pattern of change corresponds to fresh regions becoming fresher and salty regions becoming saltier ( high confidence ). CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are only able to reproduce these patterns in simulations that include greenhouse gas increases ( medium confidence ). Changes to the coincident atmospheric water cycle and ocean-atmosphere fluxes (evaporation and precipitation) are the primary drivers of the basin-scale observed salinity changes ( high confidence ). This result is supported by all available observational assessments, along with a growing number of climate modelling studies targeted at assessing ocean and water cycle changes. The basin-scale changes are consistent across models and intensify on centennial scales from the historical period through to the projections of future climate ( high confidence ).

3.5.3 Sea Level

In keeping with the scope of this chapter, this section addresses global and basin-scale sea level changes, whereas regional and local sea level changes are assessed in Section 9.6. In AR5, the observed sea level budget was closed by considering all contributing factors including ocean warming, mass contributions from terrestrial storage, glaciers, and the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets ( Church et al., 2013b ). The SROCC found that the observed global mean sea level (GMSL) rise is consistent within uncertainties with the sum of the estimated observed contributions for 1993–2015 and 2006–2015.

3.5.3.1 Sea Level Evaluation

The current generation of climate models do not fully resolve many of the components required to close the observed sea level budget, such as glaciers, ice sheets and land water storage (see Section 9.6 and Box 9.1). Consequently, most CMIP-based analyses of sea level change have focused on thermosteric sea level changes (i.e., thermal expansion due to warming) and ocean dynamic sea level change, both of which are simulated in the CMIP5-generation of models. The improved agreement between modelled thermal expansion and observed estimates during the historical period led the SROCC to assess a high confidence level in the simulated thermal expansion using climate models and high confidence in their ability to project future thermal expansion.

Since CMIP5 models do not include all necessary components of sea level change, this gap has been bridged by using offline models (for glacier melt and ice-sheet surface mass balance) driven by reanalyses and model output. Some studies have used offline mass inputs to account for dynamic ice-sheet and terrestrial contributions. Slangen et al. (2017) and Meyssignac et al. (2017) suggested including corrections to several contributions to sea level changes including to the Greenland surface mass balance and glacier contributions, based on differences between CMIP5-driven model results and reanalysis-driven results. This helps close the gap between models and observations for the 20th century globally, as well as providing better agreement with tide gauge observations in terms of interannual and multi-decadal variability at the regional scale.

In CMIP6, ice sheets (see Sections 3.4.3.2 and 9.4) are included for the first time in ISMIP6 ( Nowicki et al., 2016 ). There is also scope for new insights into terrestrial water contributions from land surface (and sub-surface) modelling in the Land Surface, Snow and Soil moisture Model Intercomparison Project (LS3MIP; van den Hurk et al., 2016 ). In parallel, the GlacierMIP project ( Hock et al., 2019a ; Marzeion et al., 2020 ; see Sections 3.4.3.1 and 9.5) is also underway, and has provided more quantitative guidance and a comprehensive assessment of the uncertainties and best estimates of the current and future contributions of glaciers to the sea level budget.

3.5.3.2 Sea Level Change Attribution

The SROCC concluded with high confidence that the dominant cause of GMSL rise since 1970 is anthropogenic forcing. Prior to that, AR5 had concluded that it is very likely that there has been a substantial contribution from anthropogenic forcings to GMSL rise since the 1970s. Since AR5, several studies have identified a human contribution to observed sea level change resulting from a warming climate as manifest in thermosteric sea level change and the contribution from melting glaciers and ice sheets.

In an attribution study of the sea-level contributions of glaciers, Marzeion et al. (2014) found that between 1991 and 2010, the anthropogenic fraction of global glacier mass loss was 69 ± 24% (see also Section 3.4.3.1 ). Slangen et al. (2016) considered all quantifiable components of the GMSL budget and showed that anthropogenically forced changes account for 69 ± 31% of the observed sea level rise over the period 1970 to 2005, whereas natural forcings combined with internal variability have a much smaller effect – only contributing 9 ± 18% of the change over the same period. These studies indicate that about 70% of the combined change in glaciers, ice-sheet surface mass balance and thermal expansion since 1970 can be attributed to anthropogenic forcing, and that this percentage has increased over the course of the 20th century. Detection studies on GMSL change in the 20th century ( Becker et al., 2014 ; Dangendorf et al., (2015) found that observed total GMSL change in the 20th century was inconsistent with internal variability. Dangendorf et al. (2015) determined that for 1900 to 2011 at least 45% of GMSL change is human-induced. A study that developed a semi-empirical model to link sea-level change to observed GMST change concluded that at least 41% of the 20th century sea-level rise would not have happened in the absence of the century’s increasing GMST and that there was a 95% probability that by 1970 GMSL was higher than that which would have occurred in the absence of increasing GMST ( Kopp et al., 2016 ). Richter et al. (2020) compared modelled sea level change with the satellite altimeter observations from 1993 to 2015; a period short enough that internal variability can dominate the spatial pattern of change. They found that when GMSL is not removed, model simulated zonally averaged sea level trends are consistent with altimeter observations globally as well as in each ocean basin and much larger than might be expected from internal variability. Using spatial correlation, Fasullo and Nerem (2018) showed that the satellite altimeter trend pattern is already detectable.

We note that current detection and attribution studies do not yet include all processes that are important for sea-level change (see Section 9.6). However, based on the body of literature available, we conclude that the main driver of the observed GMSL rise since at least 1971 is very likely anthropogenic forcing. The assessed period starts in 1971 for consistency with observations assessed in Cross-Chapter Box 9.1.

3.5.4 Ocean Circulation

Circulation of the ocean, whether it be wind or density driven, plays a prominent role in the heat and freshwater transport of the Earth system ( Buckley and Marshall, 2016 ). Thus, its accurate representation is crucial for the realistic representation of water mass properties, and replication of observed changes driven by atmosphere-land-ocean coupling. Here, we assess the ability of CMIP models to reproduce the observed large-scale ocean circulation, along with assessment of the detection and attribution of any anthropogenically-driven changes. We also note that the process-based understanding of these circulation changes and circulation changes occurring at smaller scales is assessed in Section 9.2.3.

3.5.4.1 Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) represents a large-scale flow of warm salty water northward at the surface and a return flow of colder water southward at depth. As such, its mean state plays an important role in transporting heat in the climate system, while its variability can act to redistribute heat (see Sections 2.3.3.4.1 and 9.2.3.1 for more details). Paleo-climatic and model evidence suggest that changes in AMOC strength have played a prominent role in past transitions between warm and cool climatic phases (e.g., Dansgaard et al., 1993 ; Ritz et al., 2013 ).

The AR5 concluded that while climate models suggested that an AMOC slowdown would occur in response to anthropogenic forcing, the short direct observational AMOC record precluded it from being used to support this model finding. Chapter 2 reports with high confidence , a weakening of the AMOC was observed in the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, while again also noting that the observational record was too short to determine whether this is a significant trend or a manifestation of decadal and multi-decadal variability ( Section 2.3.3.4.1 ). Indirect evidence of AMOC weakening since at least the 1950s is also presented, but confidence in this longer-term decrease was low Section 2.3.3.4.1 ).

The short length of the observed time-series (RAPID has measured the AMOC since 2004), sparse observations, observational uncertainties ( Sinha et al., 2018 ), as well as significant observed variability on interannual and longer time scales, makes comparison with modelled AMOC variability challenging. RAPID observations show that the overturning at 26°N was 2.9 Sv weaker in the multi-year average of 2008–2012 relative to 2004–2008 and 2.5 Sv weaker in 2012–2017 relative to 2004–2008 ( Smeed et al., 2014 , 2018 ) (see also ( Section 2.3.3.4.1 ). As expected, this weakening was accompanied by a significant reduction in northward heat transport ( Bryden et al., 2020 ). CMIP5 and CMIP6 models produce a forced weakening of the AMOC over the 2012–2017 period relative to 2004–2008, but at 26°N the multi-model mean response is substantially weaker than the observed AMOC decline over the same period. The discrepancy between the modelled multi-model mean (i.e., the forced response) and the RAPID observed AMOC changes has led studies to suggest that the observed weakening over 2004–2017 is largely due to internal variability ( Yan et al., 2018 ). However, comparison of observed RAPID AMOC variability with modelled variability also reveals that most CMIP5 models appear to underestimate the interannual and decadal time scale AMOC variability ( Roberts et al., 2014 ; Yan et al., 2018 ), and, although the overall variance is larger in CMIP6 than in CMIP5, similar results are found analysing the CMIP6 models (Figure 3.30b,c). It is currently unknown why most models underestimate this AMOC variability, or whether they are underestimating the internal or externally forced components. This underestimation of AMOC variability may also have potential implications for detection and attribution, the relationship between AMOC and AMV (see Section 3.7.7 ), and near-term predictions. There is also emerging evidence, based on analysis of freshwater transports, that the AMOC in CMIP5-era models is too stable, largely due to systematic biases in ocean salinity (W. Liu et al., 2017 ; Mecking et al., 2017 ). Such a systematic bias may potentially be linked with the underestimation of both simulated AMOC internal variability through eddy-mean flow interactions that are poorly represented in standard CMIP-class model resolution ( Leroux et al., 2018 ), and externally forced change.

As reported in Section 2.3.3.4.1 , estimates of AMOC since at least 1950, which are generated from observed surface temperatures or sea surface height, suggest the AMOC weakened through the 20th century ( low confidence ) ( Ezer et al., 2013 ; Caesar et al., 2018 ). Over the same period, the CMIP5 multi-model mean showed no significant net forced response in AMOC ( Cheng et al., 2013 ). However, a significant forced change is simulated in the CMIP6 multi-model mean, where a clear increase of the AMOC is seen over the 1940–1985 period (Figure 3.30e; Menary et al., 2020 ). Although there is general agreement that the influence of greenhouse gases acts to a weaken the modelled AMOC ( Delworth and Dixon, 2006 ; Caesar et al., 2018 ), changes in solar, volcanic and anthropogenic aerosol emissions can lead to temporary changes in AMOC on decadal- to multi-decadal time scales ( Delworth and Dixon, 2006 ; Menary et al., 2013 ; Menary and Scaife, 2014 ; Swingedouw et al., 2017 ; Undorf et al., 2018b ). As such, the simulated net forced response in AMOC is a balance between the different forcing factors (Section 9.2.3.1; Delworth and Dixon, 2006 ; Menary et al., 2020 ). The differing AMOC response of CMIP5 and CMIP6 models during the historical period has been associated with stronger aerosol effective radiative forcing in the CMIP6 models ( Menary et al., 2020 ), such that the aerosol-induced AMOC increase during the 1940–1985 period overcomes the greenhouse gas induced decline (Figure 3.30e). However, models simulate a range of anthropogenic aerosol effective radiative forcing and a range of historical AMOC trends in CMIP6 ( Menary et al., 2020 ) and there remains considerable uncertainty over the realism of the CMIP6 AMOC response during the 20th century (Figure 3.30d–f) due to disagreement among the differing lines of evidence. For example, ocean reanalysis ( Jackson et al., 2019 ) and forced ocean model simulations ( Robson et al., 2012 ; Danabasoglu et al., 2016 ), which show AMOC changes that are broadly consistent with the CMIP6 response, appear to disagree with observational estimates of AMOC over the historical period ( Ezer et al., 2013 ; Caesar et al., 2018 ). It is noted, however, that the relatively short length of the forced ocean simulations and ocean reanalysis precludes a comparable assessment of 20th century trends. Furthermore, despite the similar AMOC evolution seen in forced ocean model simulations and the CMIP6 models, it is unclear whether the same underlying mechanisms are responsible for the changes.

In summary, models do not support robust assessment of the role of anthropogenic forcing in the observed AMOC weakening between the mid-2000s and the mid-2010s, which is assessed to have occurred with high confidence in Section 2.3.3.4.1 , as the changes are outside of the range of modelled AMOC trends (regardless of whether they are forced or internally generated) in most models. Thus, we have low confidence that anthropogenic forcing has influenced the observed changes in AMOC strength in the post-2004 period. In addition, there remains considerable uncertainty over the realism of the CMIP6 AMOC response during the 20th century due to disagreement among the differing lines of observational and modelled evidence (i.e., historical AMOC estimates, ocean reanalysis, forced ocean simulations and historical CMIP6 simulations). Thus, we have low confidence that anthropogenic forcing has had a significant influence on changes in AMOC strength during the 1860–2014 period.

3.5.4.2 Southern Ocean Circulation

The Southern Ocean circulation provides the principal connections between the world’s major ocean basins through the circulation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), while also largely controlling the connection between the deep and upper layers of the global ocean circulation, through its upper and lower overturning cells.

The assessment of observations presented in Sections 2.3.3.4.2 and 9.2.3.2 reports that there is no evidence of an ACC transport change, and it is unlikely that the mean meridional position of the ACC has moved southward in recent decades (Sections 2.3.3.4.2 and 9.2.3.2). This is despite observations of surface wind displaying an intensification and southward shift ( Section 2.4.1.2 ). There is low confidence in an observed intensification of upper ocean overturning in the Southern Ocean and there is medium confidence for a slowdown of the Antarctic Bottom Water circulation and commensurate Antarctic Bottom Water volume decrease since the 1990s (Section 9.2.3.2). Section 9.2.3.2 presents new evidence, since SROCC, which assessed with medium confidence that the lower cell can episodically increase as a response to climatic anomalies, temporally counteracting the forced tendency for reduced bottom water formation.

The modelled strength of the ACC clearly improved from CMIP3, in which the models tended to underestimate the strength of the ACC, to CMIP5 ( Meijers et al., 2012 ). This improvement in the realism of ACC strength continues from CMIP5 to CMIP6, with the modelled ACC strength converging toward the magnitude of observed estimates of net flow through the Drake Passage ( Beadling et al., 2020 ). There is, however, a small number of models that still display an ACC that is much weaker than that observed, while several models also display much more pronounced ACC decadal variability than that observed ( Beadling et al., 2020 ). The increased realism of the ACC was at least partly related to noted improvements in all metrics of the Southern Ocean’s surface wind stress forcing ( Beadling et al., 2020 ). The most notable wind stress forcing improvements were found in the strength and the latitudinal position of the zonally-averaged westerly wind stress maximum ( Beadling et al., 2020 ; Bracegirdle et al., 2020 ). While the two-cell structure of the overturning circulation appears to be well captured by CMIP5 models ( Sallée et al., 2013 ; Russell et al., 2018 ), they tend to underestimate the intensity of the lower cell overturning, and overestimate the intensity of the upper cell overturning ( Sallée et al., 2013 ). As the lower overturning cell is closely related to Antarctic Bottom Water formation and deep convection, both fields also display substantial errors in CMIP5 models ( Heuzé et al., 2013 , 2015 ). CMIP6 climate models show clear improvements compared to CMIP5 in their representation of Antarctic Bottom Water, which suggests an improved representation of the lower overturning cell ( Heuzé, 2021 ).

Despite notable improvements of CMIP6 models compared to CMIP5 models, inherent limitations in the representation of important processes at play in the Southern Ocean’s horizontal and vertical circulation remain (Section 9.2.3.2). For instance, Southern Ocean mesoscale eddies are largely parameterized in the current generation of climate models and, despite their small spatial scales, they are a key element for establishing the ACC and upper overturning cell, as well as for their future evolution under changing atmospheric forcing ( Kuhlbrodt et al., 2012 ; Downes and Hogg, 2013 ; Gent, 2016 ; Downes et al., 2018 ; Poulsen et al., 2018 ). The absence of ice-sheet coupling in the CMIP6 model suite is another important limitation, as basal meltwater and calving can influence the circulation, particularly the lower cell of the Southern Ocean ( Bronselaer et al., 2018 ; Golledge et al., 2019 ; Lago and England, 2019 ; Jeong et al., 2020 ; Moorman et al., 2020 ). We note that early development of global climate models with interactive ice-shelf cavities has begun and is showing potential to be developed ( Jeong et al., 2020 ).

In summary, while there have been improvements across successive CMIP phases (from CMIP3 to CMIP6) in the representation of the Southern Ocean circulation, such that the mean zonal and overturning circulations of the Southern Ocean are now broadly reproduced, substantial observational uncertainty and climate model challenges preclude attribution of Southern Ocean circulation changes ( high confidence ).

3.6 Human Influence on the Biosphere Expand section

3.6.1 terrestrial carbon cycle.

The AR5 did not make attribution statements on changes in global carbon sinks. The IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) assessed with high confidence that global vegetation photosynthetic activity has increased over the last 2–3 decades ( Jia et al., 2019 ). That increase was attributed to direct land use and management changes, as well as to CO 2 fertilization, nitrogen deposition, increased diffuse radiation and climate change ( high confidence ). The AR5 assessed with high confidence that CMIP5 Earth System Models (ESMs) simulate the global mean land and ocean carbon sinks within the range of observation-based estimates ( Flato et al., 2013 ). The IPCC SRCCL, however, noted the remaining shortcomings of carbon cycle schemes in ESMs ( Jia et al., 2019 ), which for example do not properly incorporate thermal responses of respiration and photosynthesis, and frequently omit representations of permafrost thaw ( Comyn-Platt et al., 2018 ), the nitrogen cycle (R.Q. Thomas et al., 2015 ) and its influence on vegetation dynamics ( Jeffers et al., 2015 ), the phosphorus cycle ( Fleischer et al., 2019 ), and accurate implications of carbon store changes for a range of land use and land management options ( Erb et al., 2018 ; Harper et al., 2018 ) (see Sections 5.2.1.4.1 and 5.4, Figure 5.24 and Table 5.4 for details).

This section considers three main large-scale indicators of climate change relevant to the terrestrial carbon cycle: atmospheric CO 2 concentration, atmosphere-land CO 2 fluxes, and leaf area index. These indicators were chosen because they have been the target of attribution studies. Other indicators, like land use and management, and wildfires, relate to human influence but are discussed in Chapter 5. Chapter 7 discusses energetic consequences of changes in the terrestrial carbon cycle in Section 7.4.2.5.2. CMIP5 and CMIP6 ESMs are most often run with prescribed observed historical changes in atmospheric CO 2 concentration and diagnose CO 2 emissions consistent with these. Such calculations require that the models simulate realistic changes in the terrestrial carbon cycle over the historical period, as changes to land carbon stores will influence the size of CO 2 emissions consistent with prescribed CO 2 pathways, and associated remaining carbon budgets (Section 5.5). Such testing of existing models is needed while also recognising there are process representations still requiring inclusion.

All models and observational estimates agree that interannual variability in net CO 2 uptake is much larger over land than over the ocean. Studies demonstrate that regional variations in both the trends and the yearly strength of the terrestrial carbon sink are considerable. Land carbon uptake is dominated by the extratropical northern latitudes (see also Section 5.4.5.3 and Figure 5.25; Ciais et al., 2019 ) because the tropics may have become a net source of carbon ( Baccini et al., 2017 ). At local to regional scales, the dominant driver of yearly sink strength variations is water availability, but at continental to global scales, temperature anomalies are the dominant driver (Section 5.2.1.4.2; Jung et al., 2017 ). The major role of levels of water stored in the ground in influencing land-atmosphere CO 2 exchange has also been confirmed through simultaneous analysis of satellite gravimetry and atmospheric CO 2 levels ( Humphrey et al., 2018 ). When considered globally, simulated land and ocean carbon sinks fall within the range of observation-based estimates with high confidence . But there is also high confidence that that apparent success arises for the wrong reasons, as models underestimate the Northern Hemisphere carbon sink, as discussed in Section 5.4.5.3.

Proposed causes of the trend in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of CO 2 , and its amplification at higher latitudes, include increases in the summer productivity and/or increases in the magnitude of winter respiration of northern ecosystems ( Barichivich et al., 2013 ; Graven et al., 2013 ; Forkel et al., 2016 ; Wenzel et al., 2016 ), increases in productivity throughout the Northern Hemisphere by CO 2 fertilization, and increases in the productivity of agricultural crops in northern mid-latitudes ( Gray et al., 2014 ; Zeng et al., 2014 ). Recent studies have attempted to quantify the different contributions by comparing atmospheric CO 2 observations with ensembles of land surface model simulations. Piao et al. (2017) found that CO 2 fertilization of photosynthesis is the main driver of the increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO 2 but noted that climate change drives the latitudinal differences in that increase. North of 40°N, Bastos et al. (2019) also found CO 2 fertilization to be the most likely driver, with warming at northern high latitudes contributing a decrease in amplitude, in contrast to earlier conclusions ( Graven et al., 2013 ; Forkel et al., 2016 ), and agricultural and land use changes making only a small contribution. For temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, K. Wang et al. (2020) found that the importance of CO 2 fertilization is decreased by drought stress, but also found only a small contribution from agricultural and land use changes. However, many global models do not include nitrogen fertilization, changes to crop cultivars or irrigation effects, with the latter associated with deficiencies in simulated terrestrial water cycling (H. Yang et al., 2018 ). All these factors influence the capability of models to simulate accurately the seasonal cycle in atmosphere-land CO 2 exchanges. Model comparisons to the atmospheric CO 2 concentration record for Barrow, Alaska, suggest that models underestimate current levels of carbon fixation ( Winkler et al., 2019 ) and have deficiencies in their phenological representation of greenness levels, particularly for autumn (Z. Li et al., 2018 ). Based on these studies and noting the uncertainty in the processes ultimately driving changes in atmospheric CO 2 seasonal cycles (Section 5.2.1.4), we assess with medium confidence that fertilization by anthropogenic increases in atmospheric CO 2 concentrations is the main driver of the increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO 2 .

Detection and attribution methods have been applied to leaf area index, which represents ‘greenness’ and general photosynthetic productivity (see Section 2.3.4.3 ). Nitrogen deposition and land cover change trends remain small compared to variability, so attributing changes in leaf area index to those processes is difficult. Using three satellite products and ten land models, Zhu et al. (2016) found increases in leaf area index (greening) over 25–50% of global vegetated areas, and they attributed 70% of this greening to CO 2 fertilization, although they found that land use change can dominate regionally. This is consistent with the attribution study of observed greening of Mao et al. (2016) , and with Mao et al. (2013) who found that CO 2 fertilization was the dominant cause of enhanced vegetation growth, with latitudinal changes in leaf area index explained by the larger land surface warming in the Northern Hemisphere. These conclusions are also consistent with those of Zhu et al. (2017) , who found a dominant role for CO 2 fertilization in driving leaf area index changes in an attribution study in which land models were first weighted by performance. However, Chen et al. (2019) has challenged these results by showing that greening in India and China was driven by land-use change.

Leaf area index increases attributed to CO 2 fertilization are due to a direct raised physiological response. However, for drylands, CO 2 -induced stomatal closure may act to conserve soil moisture and thereby indirectly drive higher photosynthesis through higher water use efficiency ( Lu et al., 2016 ). In models with nitrogen deposition, there is evidence that this simulated effect also influences leaf area index trends, however, because of a lack of literature based on large-scale land simulations including both nutrient limitation and crop intensification, it is not yet possible to make an attribution statement about their individual roles in leaf area index changes.

In summary, Earth system models simulate globally averaged land carbon sinks within the range of observation-based estimates ( high confidence ), but global-scale agreement masks large regional disagreements. Based on new studies that attribute changes in atmospheric CO 2 seasonal cycle to CO 2 fertilization, albeit counteracted by other factors, combined with the medium confidence that models represent the processes driving changes in the seasonal cycle, we assess that there is medium confidence that CO 2 fertilization is the main driver of the increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO 2 . Based on available literature, CO 2 fertilization has been the main driver of the observed greening trend, but there is only low confidence in this assessment because of ongoing debate about the relative roles of CO 2 fertilization, high latitude warming, and land management, and the low number of models that represent the whole suite of processes involved.

3.6.2 Ocean Biogeochemical Variables

Since CMIP5, there has been a general increase in ocean horizontal and vertical grid resolution in ocean model components ( Arora et al., 2020 ; Séférian et al., 2020 ). The latter of these developments is particularly significant for projections of ocean stressors as it directly affects the representation of stratification. Updates in the representation of ocean biogeochemical processes between CMIP5 and CMIP6 have typically involved an increase in model complexity. Specific developments have been the more widespread inclusion of micronutrients, such as iron, variable stoichiometric ratios, more detailed representation of lower trophic levels including bacteria and the cycling and sinking of organic matter. CMIP6 biogeochemical model performance is generally an improvement on that of the parent CMIP5 generation of models ( Séférian et al., 2020 ). The global representation of present-day air-sea carbon fluxes and surface chlorophyll concentrations show moderate improvements between CMIP5 and CMIP6. Similar improvements are seen in the representation of subsurface oxygen concentrations in most ocean basins, while the representation of surface macronutrient concentrations in CMIP6 is shown to have improved with respect to silicic acid but declined slightly with respect to nitrate. Model representation of the micronutrient iron has not improved substantially since CMIP5, but many more models are capable of representing iron. In addition, a comparison of the carbon concentration and carbon climate feedbacks shows no significant change between CMIP5 and CMIP6 ( Arora et al., 2020 ).

Since AR5, research has also focused on the detection and attribution of regional patterns in ocean biogeochemical change relating to interior deoxygenation, air-sea CO 2 flux, and ocean carbon uptake and associated acidification. Characterization of flux variability requires understanding of the suite of physical and biological processes including transport, heat fluxes, interior ventilation, biological production and gas exchange which can have very different controls on seasonal versus interannual time scales in both the North Pacific ( Ayers and Lozier, 2012 ) and North Atlantic ( Breeden and McKinley, 2016 ). In the Southern Ocean, models have difficulty reproducing the observed seasonal cycle and interannual variability, making attribution particularly challenging ( Lovenduski et al., 2016 ; Mongwe et al., 2016 , 2018).

The AR5 concluded that oxygen concentrations have decreased in the open ocean since 1960 and such decreases can be attributed in part to human influence with medium confidence . The decrease in ocean oxygen content in the upper 1000 m, between 1970 and 2010, is further confirmed in SROCC ( medium confidence ), with the oxygen minimum zone expanding in volume (see also Section 5.3.3.2). Observed oxygen declines over the last several decades ( Stendardo and Gruber, 2012 ; Stramma et al., 2012 ; Schmidtko et al., 2017 ) match model estimates in the surface ocean ( Oschlies et al., 2017 ) but are much larger than model derived estimates in the interior ( Bopp et al., 2013 ; Cocco et al., 2013 ). Some of this difference has been interpreted as due to a lack of representation of coastal eutrophication in these models ( Breitburg et al., 2018 ), but much of it remains unexplained. This disparity is particularly apparent in the eastern Pacific oxygen minimum zone, where some CMIP5 models showed increasing trends whereas observations show a strong decrease ( Cabré et al., 2015 ). However, proxy reconstructions suggest that over the last century the ocean may have in fact undergone increases in oxygen in the most oxygen poor regions ( Deutsch et al., 2014 ). As discussed in Section 5.3.1, ocean oxygen went through wide oscillations on multi-centennial time scales through the last deglaciation, with abrupt warming resulting in loss of oxygen in subsurface waters of the North Pacific ( Praetorius et al., 2015 ). The global upper ocean oxygen inventory is negatively correlated with ocean heat content with a regression coefficient comparable to that found in ocean models ( Ito et al., 2017 ). Variability and trends in the observed upper ocean oxygen concentration are mainly driven by the apparent oxygen utilization component with small contributions from oxygen solubility, suggesting that changing ocean circulation, mixing, and/or biochemical processes, rather than thermally induced solubility effects may be the main drivers of observed deoxygenation. The spatial distribution of the ocean deoxygenation in the interior of the ocean as well as over coastal areas is further assessed in Section 5.3.

As one of the most commonly observed surface parameters, the partial pressure of CO 2 has been the topic of considerable detection and attribution work. In North Atlantic subtropical and equatorial biomes, warming has been shown to be a significant and persistent contributor to the observed increase in the partial pressure of CO 2 since the mid‐2000s with long‐term warming leading to a reduction in ocean carbon uptake ( Fay and McKinley, 2013 ), and with both the partial pressure of CO 2 and associated carbon uptake demonstrating strong predictability as a function of interannual to decadal climate state (H. Li et al., 2016 ; Li and Ilyina, 2018 ). In the Southern Ocean however, detection and attribution of surface trends in the partial pressure of CO 2 has proven more elusive and dependent on methodology, with some studies suggesting that Southern Ocean carbon uptake slowed from about 1990 to 2006 and subsequently strengthened from 2007 to 2010 ( Lovenduski et al., 2008 ; Fay et al., 2014 ; Ritter et al., 2017 ). Other studies have suggested that poor representation of the seasonal cycle in the Southern Ocean may confound the models’ ability to represent changes in the partial pressure of CO 2 in the Southern Ocean ( Nevison et al., 2016 ; Mongwe et al., 2018 ).

Section 5.2.1.3 assesses that both observational reconstructions based on the partial pressure of CO 2 and ocean biogeochemical models show a quasi-linear increase in the ocean sink of anthropogenic CO 2 from 1.0 ± 0.3 PgC yr –1 to 2.5 ± 0.6 PgC yr –1 between 1960–1969 and 2010–2019 in response to global CO 2 emissions ( high confidence ). During the 1990s, the global net flux of CO 2 into the ocean is estimated to have weakened to 0.8 ± 0.5 PgC yr –1 while in 2000 and thereafter, it is estimated to have strengthened considerably to rates of 2.0 ± 0.5 PgC yr –1 , associated with changes in SST, the surface concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity, and decadal variations in atmospheric forcing ( Landschützer et al., 2016 , see also Section 5.2).

Ocean acidification is one of the most detectible metrics of environmental change and was well covered in AR5, in which it was assessed that the uptake of anthropogenic CO 2 had very likely resulted in acidification of surface waters ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). Since then, observations and simulations of multi-decadal trends in surface carbon chemistry have increased in robustness. The evidence on ocean pH decline had further strengthened in SROCC with good agreement found between CMIP5 models and observations and an assessment that the ocean was continuing to acidify in response to ongoing carbon uptake ( Bindoff et al., 2019 ). An observed decrease in global surface open ocean pH is assessed in Section 2.3.3.5 to be virtually certain to have occurred with a rate of 0.003–0.026 per decade for the past 40 years. The ocean acidification has occurred not only in the surface layer but also in the interior of the ocean (Sections 2.3.3.5 and 5.3.3). Rates have been observed to be between −0.015 and −0.020 per decade in mode and intermediate waters of the North Atlantic through the combined effect of increased anthropogenic and remineralized carbon ( Ríos et al., 2015 ) and acidification has been observed down to 3000 m in the deep water formation regions ( Perez et al., 2018 ). There has also been considerable improvement in detection and attribution of anthropogenic CO 2 versus eutrophication-based acidification in coastal waters ( Wallace et al., 2014 ).

The increased evidence in recent studies supports an assessment that it is virtually certain that the uptake of anthropogenic CO 2 was the main driver of the observed acidification of the global surface open ocean. The observed increase in acidification over the North Atlantic subtropical and equatorial regions since 2000 is likely associated in part with an increase in ocean temperature, a response which corresponds to the expected weakening of the ocean carbon sink with warming. Due to strong internal variability, systematic changes in carbon uptake in response to climate warming have not been observed in most other ocean basins at present. We further assess, consistent with AR5 and SROCC, that deoxygenation in the upper ocean is due in part to anthropogenic forcing, with medium confidence. There is high confidence that Earth system models simulate a realistic time evolution of the global mean ocean carbon sink.

3.7 Human Influence on Modes of Climate Variability Expand section

This section assesses model evaluation and attribution of changes in the modes of climate variability listed in Cross-Chapter Box 2.2, Table 2. The structure of the modes is described in Annex IV, observed changes in the modes and associated teleconnections are assessed in Section 2.4 , and the role of the modes in shaping regional climate is assessed in Section 10.1.3.2.

3.7.1 North Atlantic Oscillation and Northern Annular Mode

The Northern Annular Mode (NAM; also known as the Arctic Oscillation) is an oscillation of atmospheric mass between the Arctic and northern mid-latitudes, analogous to the Southern Annular Mode (SAM; Section 3.7.2 ). It is the leading mode of variability of sea-level pressure in the northern extratropics but also has a clear fingerprint through the troposphere up to the lower stratosphere, with maximum expression in boreal winter ( Kidston et al., 2015 ). The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) can be interpreted as the regional expression of the NAM and captures most of the related variance in the troposphere over a broad North Atlantic/Europe domain. Indices measuring the state of the NAO correlate highly with those of the NAM, and teleconnection patterns for both modes are rather similar ( Feldstein and Franzke, 2006 ). A detailed description of the NAM and the NAO as well as their associated teleconnection over land is given in Annex IV.2.1.

AR5 found that while models simulated correctly most of the spatial properties of the NAM, substantial inter-model differences remained in the details of the associated teleconnection patterns over land ( Flato et al., 2013 ). The AR5 reported that most models did not reproduce the observed positive trend of the NAO/NAM indices during the second half of the 20th century. It was unclear to what extent this failure reflected model shortcomings and/or if the observed trend could be simply related to pronounced internal climate variability. The AR5 accordingly did not make an attribution assessment for the NAO/NAM.

CMIP5 models with a model top within the stratosphere seriously underestimate the amplitude of the variability of the wintertime NAM expression in the stratosphere, in contrast to CMIP5 models which extend well above the stratopause ( Lee and Black, 2015 ). However, even in the latter models, the stratospheric NAM events, and their downward influence on the troposphere, are insufficiently persistent ( Charlton-Perez et al., 2013 ; Lee and Black, 2015 ). Increased vertical resolution does not show any significant added value in reproducing the structure and magnitude of the tropospheric NAM ( Lee and Black, 2013 ) nor in the NAO predictability as assessed in a seasonal prediction context with a multi-model approach ( Butler et al., 2016 ). On the other hand, there is mounting evidence that a correct representation of the Quasi Biennal Oscillation, extratropical stratospheric dynamics (the polar vortex and sudden stratospheric warmings), and related troposphere-stratosphere coupling, as well as their interplay with ENSO, are important for NAO/NAM timing ( Scaife et al., 2016 ; Karpechko et al., 2017 ; Domeisen, 2019 ; Domeisen et al., 2019 ), in spite of underestimated troposphere–stratosphere coupling found in models compared to observations ( O’Reilly et al., 2019b ).

Dedicated SST-forced stand-alone atmospheric model experiments (AMIP) suggest that ocean forcing appears to play a role in decadal variability of the NAO and associated fluctuations in the strength of the jet ( Woollings et al., 2015 ). In particular, Atlantic and Indian Ocean SST anomalies ( Fletcher and Cassou, 2015 ; Baker et al., 2019 ; Douville et al., 2019 ; Dhame et al., 2020 ) may have contributed to the long-term positive trend of the winter NAO/NAM over the 20th century, but there is only low confidence in such a causal relationship because of the limitation of the imposed SST approach in AMIP and the uncertainties in observed SST trends among datasets used as forcing of the atmospheric model. The representation of the NAM and NAO spatial structure is slightly improved in AMIP ensembles (Figure 3.33g,h), which also produce slightly larger trends than the historical simulations for the NAO, but not for the NAM.

When calculated over the most recent two decades, the wintertime NAM/NAO trend is weakly negative since the mid-1990s ( Hanna et al., 2015 ). Recent studies based on observations ( Gastineau and Frankignoul, 2015 ) and dedicated modelling experiments ( Davini et al., 2015 ; Peings and Magnusdottir, 2016 ) suggest that the recent dominance of negative NAM/NAO could be partly related to the latest shift of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Variability (AMV) to a warm phase (Sections 2.4.4 and 3.7.7). Some recent modelling studies also find that the Arctic sea ice decline might be partly responsible for more recurrent negative NAM/NAO ( Peings and Magnusdottir, 2013 ; B.M. Kim et al., 2014 ; Nakamura et al., 2015 ), while other studies do not robustly identify such responses in models (see also Cross-Chapter Box 10.1).

In contrast to winter, the observed trend of the NAO index over 1958–2014 is overall negative in summer and is associated with more recurrent blocking conditions over Greenland, in particular since the mid-1990s, thus contributing to the acceleration of melting of the Arctic sea ice ( Section 3.4.1.1 ) and Greenland Ice Sheet ( Section 3.4.3.2 ; Fettweis et al., 2013 ; Hanna et al., 2015 ; Ding et al., 2017 ). The origin of the negative trend of the summer NAO has not been clearly identified, and is hypothesized to be the result of combined influences ( Lim et al., 2019 ), though trends in summertime NAO should also be interpreted with caution because of the presence of strong multi-decadal variability. The recent observed negative NAO prevalence and related blocking over Greenland is not present in any of the CMIP5 models ( Hanna et al., 2018 ).

Regarding the influence of external forcings since pre-industrial times, AR5 noted that CMIP5 models tend to show an increase in the NAM in response to greenhouse gas increases ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). Based on the CMIP5 historical ensemble, Gillett and Fyfe (2013) however showed that such a trend is not significant in all seasons. A multi-model assessment of eight CMIP5 models found a NAM increase in response to greenhouse gases, but no robust influence of aerosol changes ( Gillett et al., 2013 ). As for ozone depletion, there is no robust detectable influence on long-term trends of the NAO/NAM ( Karpechko et al., 2018 ) in contrast to the SAM ( Section 3.7.2 ), but there are indications that extreme Arctic ozone depletion events and their surface expression are linked to an anomalously strong NAM episodes ( Calvo et al., 2015 ; Ivy et al., 2017 ). However, the direction of causality here is not clear.

Conclusions on external forcing influences on the NAM are supported by CMIP6 results based on single forcing ensembles (Figure 3.34a). Positive trends are found in historical simulations over 1958–2019 in boreal winter and are mainly driven by greenhouse gas increases. No significant trends are simulated in response to anthropogenic aerosols, stratospheric ozone or natural forcing. Albeit weak and not statistically significant, the sign of the multi-model mean forced response due to natural forcing is consistent with the observed reduction of solar activity since the 1980s ( Section 2.2.1 ) whose influence would have favoured the negative phase of wintertime NAM/NAO based on the fingerprint of the nearly periodical 11-year solar cycle extracted from models ( Scaife et al., 2013 ; Andrews et al., 2015 ; Thiéblemont et al., 2015 ) or observations ( Gray et al., 2016 ; Lüdecke et al., 2020 ). But such an NAO response to solar forcing remains highly uncertain and controversial, being contradicted by longer proxy records over the last millennium ( Sjolte et al., 2018 ) and modelling evidence ( Gillett and Fyfe, 2013 ; Chiodo et al., 2019 ). For all seasons and for all individual forcings, uncertainties remain in the estimation of the forced response in the NAM trend as evidenced by considerable model spread (Figure 3.34a) and because the simulated forced component has small amplitude compared to internal variability.

Despite new efforts since AR5 to reconstruct the NAO beyond the instrumental record, it is still very challenging to assess the role of external forcings in the apparent multi-decadal to centennial variability present throughout the last millennium. Large uncertainties remain in the reconstructed NAO index that are sensitive to the types of proxies and statistical methods ( Trouet et al., 2012 ; Ortega et al., 2015 ; Anchukaitis et al., 2019 ; Cook et al., 2019 ; Hernández et al., 2020 ; Michel et al., 2020 ) and reconstructed NAO variations are often not reproduced using pseudo-proxy approaches in models ( Lehner et al., 2012 ; Landrum et al., 2013 ). At low frequency, it remains challenging to evaluate if the observed or reconstructed signal corresponds to an actual change in the NAO intraseasonal to interannual intrinsic properties or rather to a change in the mean background atmospheric circulation changes projecting on a specific phase of the mode. Consequently, conflicting results emerge in the attribution of reconstructed long-term variations in the NAO to solar forcing, whose influence thus remains controversial ( Gómez-Navarro and Zorita, 2013 ; Moffa-Sánchez et al., 2014 ; Ortega et al., 2015 ; Ait Brahim et al., 2018 ; Sjolte et al., 2018 ; Xu et al., 2018 ). Influences from major volcanic eruptions appear to be more robust ( Ortega et al., 2015 ; Swingedouw et al., 2017 ) even if some modelling experiments question the amplitude of the response, which mostly projects on the positive phase of the NAM/NAO ( Bittner et al., 2016 ). The forced response is dependent on the strength, seasonal timing and location of the eruption but may also depend on the mean climate background state ( Zanchettin et al., 2013 ) and/or the phases of the main modes of decadal variability such as the AMV ( Section 3.7.7 ; Ménégoz et al., 2018 ).

Finally, there is some evidence of an apparent signal-to-noise problem referred to as ‘paradox’ in seasonal and decadal hindcasts of the NAO over the period 1979–2018 ( Scaife and Smith, 2018 ), which suggests that the NAO response to external forcing, SST or sea ice anomalies could be too weak in models. The weakness of the signal has been related to troposphere-stratosphere coupling which is too intermittent ( O’Reilly et al., 2019b ) and to chronic model biases in the persistence of NAO/NAM daily regimes, which is critically underestimated in coupled models ( Strommen and Palmer, 2019 ; Zhang and Kirtman, 2019 ), and which does not exhibit significant improvement when model resolution is increased ( Fabiano et al., 2020 ). Note, however, that the apparent signal-to-noise problem may be dependent on the period analysed over the 20th century, which questions its interpretation as a general characteristic of coupled models ( Weisheimer et al., 2020 ).

In summary, CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are skilful in simulating the spatial features and the variance of the NAM/NAO and associated teleconnections ( high confidence ). There is limited evidence for a significant role for anthropogenic forcings in driving the observed multi-decadal variations of the NAM/NAO from the mid 20th century. Confidence in attribution is low : (i) because there is a large spread in the modelled forced responses which is overwhelmed anyway by internal variability; (ii) because of the apparent signal-to-noise problem; and (iii) because of the chronic inability of models to produce a range of trends which encompasses the observed estimates over the last 60 years.

3.7.2 Southern Annular Mode

The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) consists of a meridional redistribution of atmospheric mass around Antarctica (Figure 3.33c,f), associated with a meridional shift of the jet and surface westerlies over the Southern Ocean. SAM indices are variously defined as the difference in zonal-mean sea level pressure or geopotential height between middle and high latitudes or via a principal-component analysis (Annex IV.2.2). Observational aspects of the SAM are assessed in Section 2.4.1.2 .

AR5 assessed that CMIP5 models have medium performance in reproducing the SAM with biases in pattern ( Flato et al., 2013 ). It also concluded that the trend of the SAM toward its positive phase in austral summer since the mid-20th century is likely to be due in part to stratospheric ozone depletion, and there was medium confidence that greenhouse gases have also played a role ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ). Based on proxy reconstructions, AR5 found with medium confidence that the positive SAM trend since 1950 was anomalous compared to the last 400 years ( Masson-Delmotte et al., 2013 ).

Additional research has shown that CMIP5 models reproduce the spatial structure of the SAM well, but tend to overestimate its variability in austral summer at interannual time scales, although this variability is within the observational uncertainty (Figure 3.33c,f,i; Zheng et al., 2013 ; Schenzinger and Osprey, 2015 ). This is related to the models’ tendency to simulate slightly more persistent SAM anomalies in summer compared to reanalyses ( Schenzinger and Osprey, 2015 ; Bracegirdle et al., 2020 ). This may be due in part to too weak a negative feedback from tropospheric planetary waves ( Simpson et al., 2013 ). CMIP6 models show improved performance in reproducing the spatial structure and interannual variance of the SAM in summer based on Lee et al. (2019) diagnostics (Figure 3.33i), with a better match of its trend with reanalyses over 1979–2014 (Figure 3.33l), more realistic persistence and improved positioning of the westerly jet, which in CMIP5 models on average is located too far equatorward ( Bracegirdle et al., 2020 ; Grose et al., 2020 ). In CMIP5, it is also found that models which extend above the stratopause tend to simulate stronger summertime trends in the late 20th century than their counterparts with tops within the stratosphere ( Rea et al., 2018 ; Son et al., 2018 ), though other differences between these sets of models, such as additional physical processes operating in the stratosphere or interactive ozone chemistry, may have also affected these results ( Gillett et al., 2003a ; Sigmond et al., 2008 ; Rea et al., 2018 ). At the surface, Ogawa et al. (2015) demonstrate with an atmospheric model the importance of sharp mid-latitude SST gradients for stratospheric ozone depletion to affect the SAM in summer. These studies imply that the well resolved stratosphere combined with finer ocean horizontal resolution has contributed to the stronger simulated trends in CMIP6 than in CMIP5.

CMIP6 historical simulations capture the observed positive trend of the summertime SAM when calculated from the 1970s to the 2010s (Figure 3.34b). J.L. Thomas et al. (2015) found that the chance of the observed 1980–2004 trend occurring only due to internal variability is less than 10% in many of the CMIP5 models, and results from CMIP6 models suggest that the chance of the 1979–2019 trend being due to internal variability could be even lower (Figure 3.34b). Although paleo-reconstructions of the SAM index are uncertain and vary in terms of long-term trends ( Section 2.4.1.2 ), new reconstructions show that the 60-year summertime SAM trend since the mid-20th century is outside the 5th–95th percentile range of the trends in the pre-industrial variability, which matches the trend range of CMIP5 pre-industrial control simulations well ( Dätwyler et al., 2018 ).

In general agreement with AR5, new research continues to indicate that both stratospheric ozone depletion and increasing greenhouse gases have contributed to the trend of the SAM during austral summer toward its positive phase in recent decades ( Solomon and Polvani, 2016 ), with the ozone depletion influence dominating ( Gerber and Son, 2014 ; Son et al., 2018 ). In CMIP6 historical simulations there are significant positive SAM trends over the 1979–2019 period in austral summer, although the contribution from ozone forcing evaluated with the four available models is not significant (Figure 3.34b). Three of these models share the same standard prescribed ozone forcing and produce significantly positive SAM trends over an extended period (1957–2019). The fourth model, MRI-ESM2-0, has the option of interactive ozone chemistry. Its ozone-only experiment is forced by prescribed ozone derived from its own historical simulations and produces a negative SAM trend associated with weak ozone depletion ( Morgenstern et al., 2020 ). Morgenstern et al. (2014) and Morgenstern (2021) find an indirect influence of greenhouse gases on the SAM via induced ozone changes in coupled chemistry-climate simulations, which differ from the prescribed ozone simulations shown in Figure 3.34b. Since about 1997, the effective abundance of ozone-depleting halogen has been decreasing in the stratosphere ( WMO, 2018 ), leading to a stabilization or even a reversal of stratospheric ozone depletion (Sections 2.2.5.2 and 6.3.2.2). The ozone stabilization and slight recovery since about 2000 may have caused a pause in the summertime SAM trend (Figure 3.34c; Saggioro and Shepherd, 2019 ; Banerjee et al., 2020 ), although some influence from internal variability cannot be ruled out. While some studies find an anthropogenic aerosol influence on the summertime SAM ( Gillett et al., 2013 ; Rotstayn, 2013 ), recent studies with larger multi-model ensembles find that this effect is not robust ( Steptoe et al., 2016 ; Choi et al., 2019 ), consistent with CMIP6 single forcing ensembles (Figure 3.34). In the CMIP5 simulations, volcanic stratospheric aerosol has a significant weakening effect on the SAM in autumn and winter (Cross-Chapter Box 4.1; Gillett and Fyfe, 2013 ), but there is no evidence that this effect leads to a significant multi-decadal trend since the late 20th century. Beyond external forcing, Fogt et al. (2017) show a significant association of tropical SST variability with the summertime SAM trend since the mid-20th century in agreement with Lim et al. (2016) , who, however, demonstrate that such a teleconnection between the summertime SAM and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (Annex IV.2.3), found in observations, is missing in many CMIP5 models.

In summary, it is very likely that anthropogenic forcings have contributed to the observed trend of the summer SAM toward its positive phase since the 1970s. This assessment is supported by further model studies that confirm the human influence on the summertime SAM with improved models since AR5. While ozone depletion contributed to the trend from the 1970s to the 1990s ( medium confidence ), its influence has been small since 2000, leading to a weaker summertime SAM trend over 2000–2019 ( medium confidence ). Climate models reproduce the spatial structure of the summertime SAM observed since the late 1970s well ( high confidence ). CMIP6 models reproduce the spatiotemporal features and recent multi-decadal trend of the summertime SAM better than CMIP5 models ( medium confidence ). However, there is a large spread in the intensity of the SAM response to ozone and greenhouse gas changes in both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models ( high confidence ), which limits the confidence in the assessment of the ozone contribution to the observed trends. CMIP5 and CMIP6 models do not capture multicentennial variability of the SAM found in proxy reconstructions ( low confidence ). This confidence level reflects that it is unclear whether this is due to a model or an observational shortcoming.

3.7.3 El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which is generated via seasonally modulated interactions between the tropical Pacific ocean and atmosphere, influences severe weather, rainfall, river flow and agricultural production over large parts of the world ( McPhaden et al., 2006 ). In fact, the remote climate influence of ENSO is so large that knowledge of its current phase and forecasts of its future phase largely underpin many seasonal rainfall and temperature forecasts worldwide (Annex IV.2.3).

AR5 noted that there have been clear improvements in the simulation of ENSO through previous generations of CMIP models ( Flato et al., 2013 ), such that many CMIP5 models displayed behaviour that was qualitatively similar to that of the observed ENSO ( Guilyardi et al., 2012 ). However, systematic errors were identified in the models’ representation of the tropical Pacific mean state and aspects of their interannual variability that affect quantitative comparisons. The AR5 assessment of ENSO concluded that the considerable observed inter-decadal modulations in ENSO amplitude and spatial pattern were largely consistent with unforced model simulations. Thus, there was low confidence in the role of a human-induced influence in these ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ).

Observations show strong multi-decadal modulation of ENSO variance throughout the 20th century, with the most recent period displaying larger variability while the mid-century displayed relatively low ENSO variability (Figure 2.36; Li et al., 2013 ; McGregor et al., 2013 ; Hope et al., 2017 ). As assessed in Section 2.4.2 , ENSO amplitude since 1950 is higher than over the pre-industrial period from 1850 as far back as 1400 ( medium confidence ), but there is low confidence that it is higher than the variability over periods prior to 1400. This reported variance increase suggests that external forcing plays a role in the ENSO variance changes ( Hope et al., 2017 ). However, large ensembles of single model or multiple model simulations do not find strong trends in ENSO variability over the historical period, suggesting that external forcing has not yet modulated ENSO variability with a magnitude that exceeds the range of internal variability ( Hope et al., 2017 ; Maher et al., 2018b ; Stevenson et al., 2019 ). This is consistent with the Chapter 2 assessment that there is no clear evidence for a recent sustained shift in ENSO beyond the range of variability on decadal to millennial time scales ( Section 2.4.2 ). CMIP5 and CMIP6 models show a decrease in ENSO variance in the mid-Holocene ( Brown et al., 2020 ), though not to the extent seen in paleo-proxy records ( Emile-Geay et al., 2016 ). This suggests that both modelled and observed ENSO respond to changes in external forcing, but not necessarily in the same manner.

Most CMIP5 and CMIP6 models are found to represent the general structure of observed SST anomalies during ENSO events well ( Kim and Yu, 2012 ; Taschetto et al., 2014 ; Brown et al., 2020 ; Grose et al., 2020 ). However, the majority of CMIP5 models display SST anomalies that: i) extend too far to the west ( Taschetto et al., 2014 ; Capotondi et al., 2015 ); and ii) have meridional widths that are too narrow ( Zhang and Jin, 2012 ) compared to the observations. CMIP6 models display a statistically significant improvement in the longitudinal representation of ENSO SST anomalies relative to CMIP5 models ( Planton et al., 2021 ), however, systematic biases in the zonal extent and meridional width remain in CMIP6 models ( Fasullo et al., 2020 ; Planton et al., 2021 ). The ENSO phase asymmetry, where observed strong El Niño events are larger and have a shorter duration than strong La Niña events ( Ohba and Ueda, 2009 ; Frauen and Dommenget, 2010 ), is also under-represented in both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models ( Zhang and Sun, 2014 ; Planton et al., 2021 ). In this instance, both CMIP5 and CMIP6 models typically display El Niño events that have a longer duration than those observed, La Niña events that have a similar duration to those observed, and there is very little asymmetry in the duration of El Niño and La Niña phases (Figure 3.36). Roberts et al. (2018) find an improvement in amplitude asymmetry in a HighResMIP model, but the under-representation remains.

The continuum of El Niño events are typically stratified into two types (often termed ‘flavours’), Central Pacific and East Pacific, where the name denotes the location of the events’ largest SST anomalies (Annex IV.2.3; Capotondi et al., 2015 ). As discussed in Section 2.4.2 , the different types of events tend to produce distinct teleconnections and climatic impacts (e.g., Taschetto et al., 2020 ). The characteristics of El Niño events of these two flavours in CMIP5 were generally comparable to the observations ( Taschetto et al., 2014 ). CMIP6 models, however, display a statistically significant improvement in the representation of this ENSO event-to-event SST anomaly diversity when compared with CMIP5 models ( Planton et al., 2021 ). In addition to this ENSO event diversity, the short observational record also displays an increase in the number of the Central Pacific-type events in recent decades ( Ashok et al., 2007 ; McPhaden et al., 2011 ), which has also been identified as unusual in the context of the last 500–800 years based on recent paleo-climatic reconstructions ( Section 2.4.2 ; Y. Liu et al., 2017 ; Freund et al., 2019 ). However, the short observational record combined with observational ( L’Heureux et al., 2013 ) and paleo-climatic reconstruction uncertainties preclude firm conclusions being made about the long-term changes in the occurrence of different El Niño event types. Initial analysis with a selected number of CMIP3 models suggested that there may be a forced component to this recent prominence of Central Pacific-type events ( Yeh et al., 2009 ), but analysis since then suggests that this behaviour is (i) consistent with that expected from internal variability ( Newman et al., 2011 ); and (ii) not apparent across the full CMIP5 ensemble of historical simulations ( Taschetto et al., 2014 ). Analysis of single-model large ensembles suggests that changes to ENSO event type in response to historical radiative forcing are not significant (e.g., Stevenson et al., 2019 ). These same results, however, also suggest that multiple forcings can have significant influences on ENSO type and that the net response will depend on the accurate representation of the balance of these forcings ( Stevenson et al., 2019 ).

Most CMIP5 and CMIP6 models exhibit ENSO behaviour during the historical period that, to first order, is qualitatively similar to that of the observed ENSO. Many studies are now delving deeper into the models to understand if they are accurately producing the dynamics driving ENSO and its initiation ( Jin et al., 2006 ; Bellenger et al., 2014 ; Vijayeta and Dommenget, 2018 ; Bayr et al., 2019 ; Planton et al., 2021 ). For both CMIP3 and CMIP5, diagnostics of ENSO event growth appear to show that the models, while producing ENSO variability that is qualitatively similar to that observed, do not represent the balance of the underlying dynamics well. The atmospheric Bjerknes feedback is too weak in the majority of models, while the surface heat flux feedback is also too weak in the majority of models. The former restricts event growth, while the latter restricts event damping, which when combined allow most models to produce variability in a range that is consistent with the observations ( Bellenger et al., 2014 ; S.T. Kim et al., 2014 ; Vijayeta and Dommenget, 2018 ; Bayr et al., 2019 ). Analysis of ENSO representation in a subset of CMIP6 models by Planton et al. (2021) suggests that these issues remain.

To conclude, ENSO representation in CMIP5 models displayed a significant improvement from the representation of ENSO variability in CMIP3 models, which displayed much more intermodel spread in standard deviation, and stronger biennial periodicity ( Guilyardi et al., 2012 ; Flato et al., 2013 ). In general, there has been no large step change in the representation of ENSO between CMIP5 and CMIP6, however, CMIP6 models appear to better represent some key ENSO characteristics (e.g., Brown et al., 2020 ; Planton et al., 2021 ). The instrumental record and paleo-proxy evidence through the Holocene all suggest that ENSO can display considerable modulations in amplitude, pattern and period (see also ( Section 2.4.2 ). For the period since 1850, there is no clear evidence for a sustained shift in ENSO index beyond the range of internal variability. However, paleo-proxy evidence indicates with medium confidence that ENSO variability since 1950 is greater than at any time between 1400 and 1850 ( Section 2.4.2 ). Coupled models display large changes of ENSO behaviour in the absence of external forcing changes, and little-to-no variance sensitivity to historical anthropogenic forcing. Thus, there is low confidence that anthropogenic forcing has led to the changes of ENSO variability inferred from paleo-proxy evidence.

Chapter 2 reports low confidence that the apparent change from East Pacific- to Central Pacific-type El Niño events that occurred in the last 20–30 years was representative of a long term change. While some climate models do suggest external forcing may affect the El Niño event type, most climate models suggest that what has been observed is well within the range of natural variability. Thus, there is low confidence that anthropogenic forcing has had an influence on the observed changes in El Niño event type.

3.7.4 Indian Ocean Basin and Dipole Modes

The Indian Ocean Basin (IOB) and Dipole (IOD) modes are the two leading modes of interannual SST variability over the tropical Indian Ocean, featuring basin-wide warming/cooling and an east–west dipole of SST anomalies, respectively (Annex IV.2.4). The IOD mode is anchored to boreal summer to autumn by the air–sea feedback, and often develops in concert with ENSO. Driven by matured ENSO events, the IOB mode peaks in boreal spring and often persists into the subsequent summer. Similar patterns of Indian Ocean SST variability also dominate its decadal and longer time scale variability ( Han et al., 2014b ).

AR5 concluded that models show high and medium performance in reproducing the IOB and IOD modes, respectively ( medium confidence ), with difficulty in reproducing the persistence of the IOB and the pattern and magnitude of the IOD ( Flato et al., 2013 ). There was low confidence that changes in the IOD were detectable or attributable to human influence ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ).

Since AR5, CMIP5 model representation of these modes has been analysed in detail, finding that most of the models qualitatively reproduce the spatial and seasonal features of the IOB and IOD modes ( Chu et al., 2014 ; Liu et al., 2014 ; W. Tao et al., 2016 ). Improvements in simulating the IOB mode since CMIP3 have been identified in reduced multi-model mean biases and inter-model spread (W. Tao et al., 2016 ). CMIP5 models overall capture the transition from the IOD to IOB modes during an ENSO event (W. Tao et al., 2016 ). The IOB mode is forced in part through a cross-equatorial wind–evaporation–SST feedback triggered by ENSO-forced anomalous ocean Rossby waves that propagate to the shallow climatological thermocline dome in the tropical south-western Indian Ocean ( Du et al., 2009 ). Consistently, models with a deeper climatological thermocline dome produce a weaker and less persistent IOB mode (G. Li et al., 2015 a; Zheng et al., 2016 ). The deep thermocline bias remains in the ensemble mean of CMIP5 models due to a common surface easterly wind bias over the equatorial Indian Ocean ( Lee et al., 2013 ) associated with weaker South Asian summer monsoon circulation (G. Li et al., 2015 b). However, the influence of this systematic bias may be compensated by other biases, resulting in a realistic IOB magnitude (W. Tao et al., 2016 ). Halder et al. (2021) found that CMIP6 models reproduce the IOB mode reasonably well, but did not evaluate the progress since CMIP5.

By contrast, the IOD magnitude is overestimated by CMIP5 models on average, though with noticeable improvements from CMIP3 models ( Liu et al., 2014 ). The overestimation of the IOD magnitude remains in most of 34 CMIP6 models examined in McKenna et al. (2020) with worsening on average in July and August. A too steep climatological thermocline slope along the equator due to the surface easterly wind bias in boreal summer and autumn contributes to this IOD magnitude bias through an excessively strong Bjerknes feedback in CMIP5 ( Liu et al., 2014 ; G. Li et al., 2015 b; Hirons and Turner, 2018 ). The surface easterly bias and associated east–west SST gradient bias are not improved in CMIP6 ( Long et al., 2020 ; Section 3.5.1.2.3 ), suggesting that the thermocline bias also remains. McKenna et al. (2020) additionally find degradation in the positive-negative asymmetry of the IOD but an improvement in IOD frequency in a subset of CMIP6 models compared to CMIP5. In terms of teleconnections, the equatorial surface easterly wind bias also affects the IOD-associated moisture transport anomalies toward tropical eastern Africa ( Hirons and Turner, 2018 ) where the IOD is associated with strong precipitation anomalies in boreal autumn (Annex IV.2.4). CMIP5 and CMIP6 models capture the IOD teleconnection to Southern and Central Australian precipitation although it is weaker on average than observed, with no clear improvements from CMIP5 to CMIP6 ( Grose et al., 2020 ). Strong IOD events could also influence the Northern Hemisphere extratropical circulation in winter and in particular the NAM ( Section 3.7.1 ), based on interference between forced Rossby waves emerging from the Indian Ocean and climatological stationary waves ( Fletcher and Cassou, 2015 ). The record positive phase of the NAO/NAM in winter 2019–2020 assessed over the instrumental era has been accordingly linked to the record IOD event of autumn 2019 ( Hardiman et al., 2020 ), which has been associated with the devastating record fire season in Australia ( Wang and Cai, 2020 ).

The observed Indian Ocean basin-average SST increase on multi-decadal and centennial time scales is well represented by CMIP5 historical simulations, and has been attributed to the effects of greenhouse gases offset in part by the effects of anthropogenic aerosols mainly through aerosol-cloud interactions ( Dong and Zhou, 2014 ; Dong et al., 2014b ). The observed SST trend is larger in the western than eastern tropical Indian Ocean, which leads to an apparent upward trend of the IOD index, but this trend is statistically insignificant ( Section 2.4.3 ). CMIP5 models capture this warming pattern, which may be associated with Walker circulation weakening over the Indian Ocean due to greenhouse gas forcing ( Dong and Zhou, 2014 ). However, strong internal decadal IOD-like variability and observational uncertainty preclude attribution ( Cai et al., 2013 ; Han et al., 2014b ; Gopika et al., 2020 ). Such a positive IOD-like change in equatorial zonal SST gradient suggests an increase in the frequency of extreme positive events ( Cai et al., 2014 ) and skewness ( Cowan et al., 2015 ) of the IOD mode. While there is some evidence of an increase in frequency of positive IOD events during the second half of the 20th century, the current level of IOD variability is not unprecedented in a proxy reconstruction for the last millennium ( Section 2.4.3 ; Abram et al., 2020 ). Besides, the IOD magnitude in the late 20th century is not significantly different between CMIP5 simulations forced by historical and natural-only forcings, though this conclusion is based on only five selected ensemble members that realistically reproduce statistical features of the IOD ( Blau and Ha, 2020 ). While selected CMIP5 models show weakening ( Thielke and Mölg, 2019 ) and seasonality changes ( Blau and Ha, 2020 ) in IOD-induced rainfall anomalies in tropical eastern Africa, no comparison with observational records has been made. Likewise, while a strengthening tendency of the ENSO-IOB mode correlation and resultant intensification of the IOB mode are found in historical or future simulations in selected CMIP5 models ( Hu et al., 2014 ; Tao et al., 2015 ), such a change has not been detected in observational records.

After linear detrending, Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV; Annex IV.2.6; Section 3.7.6 ) has been suggested as a driver of decadal to multi-decadal variations in the IOB mode ( Dong et al., 2016 ). However, correlation between the PDV and a decadal IOB index, defined from linearly detrended SST, changed from positive to negative during the 1980s ( Han et al., 2014a ). The increase in anthropogenic forcing and recovery from the eruptions of El Chichón in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991 may have overwhelmed the PDV influence, and explain this change ( Dong and McPhaden, 2017 ; L. Zhang et al., 2018 a ). However, the low statistical degrees of freedom hamper clear detection of human influence in this correlation change.

To summarize, there is medium confidence that changes in the interannual IOD variability in the late 20th century inferred from observations and proxy records are within the range of internal variability. There is no evidence of anthropogenic influence on the interannual IOB. On decadal- to multi-decadal time scales, there is low confidence that human influence has caused a reversal of the correlation between PDV and decadal variations in the IOB mode. The low confidence in this assessment is due to the short observational record, limited number of models used for the attribution, lack of model evaluation of the decadal IOB mode, and uncertainty in the contribution from volcanic aerosols. Nevertheless, CMIP5 models have medium overall performance in reproducing both the interannual IOB and IOD modes, with an apparently good performance in reproducing the IOB magnitude arising from compensation of biases in the formation process, and overly high IOD magnitude due to the mean state bias ( high confidence ). There is no clear improvement in the simulation of the IOD from CMIP5 to CMIP6 models, though there is only medium confidence in this assessment, since only a subset of CMIP6 models have been examined. There is no evidence for performance changes in simulating the IOB from CMIP5 to CMIP6 models.

3.7.5 Atlantic Meridional and Zonal Modes

The Atlantic Zonal Mode (AZM), often referred to as the Atlantic Equatorial Mode or Atlantic Niño, and the Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM) are the two leading basin-wide patterns of interannual to decadal variability in the tropical Atlantic. Akin to ENSO in the Pacific, the term Atlantic Niño is broadly used to refer to years when the SSTs in the tropical eastern Atlantic basin along the cold tongue are significantly warmer than the climatological average. The AMM is characterized by anomalous cross-equatorial gradients in SST. Both modes are associated with altered strength of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and/or latitudinal shifts in the ITCZ, which locally affect African and American monsoon systems and remotely affect tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean variability through inter-basins teleconnections. A detailed description of both AZM and AMM, as well as their associated teleconnection over land, is given in Annex IV.2.5

AR5 mentioned the considerable difficulty in simulating both Atlantic Niño and AMM despite some improvements in CMIP5 for some models ( Flato et al., 2013 ). Severe biases in mean state and variance for both SST and atmospheric dynamics including rainfall (e.g., a double ITCZ) as well as teleconnections were reported. The AR5 highlighted the complexity of the tropical Atlantic biases, which were explained by multiple factors both in the ocean and atmosphere.

Since AR5, further analysis of the major persistent biases in models has been reported ( Xu et al., 2014 ; Jouanno et al., 2017 ; Y. Yang et al., 2017 ; Dippe et al., 2018 ; Lübbecke et al., 2018 ; Voldoire et al., 2019a ). Errors in equatorial and basin wide trade winds, cloud cover and ocean vertical mixing and dynamics both locally and in remote subtropical upwelling regions, key thermodynamic ocean–atmosphere feedbacks, and tropical land–atmosphere interaction have been shown to be detrimental to the representation of both the Atlantic Niño and AMM leading to poor teleconnectivity over land ( Rodríguez-Fonseca et al., 2015 ; Wainwright et al., 2019 ) and between tropical basins ( Ott et al., 2015 ).

Despite some improvements ( Richter et al., 2014 ; Nnamchi et al., 2015 ), biases in the mean state are so large that the mean east–west temperature gradient at the equator along the thermocline remains opposite to observed in two thirds of the CMIP5 models ( Section 3.5.1.2.2 ), which clearly affects the simulation of the Atlantic Niño and associated dynamics ( Muñoz et al., 2012 ; Ding et al., 2015 ; Deppenmeier et al., 2016 ). The interhemispheric SST gradient is also systematically underestimated in models, with a too cold mean state in the northern part of the tropical Atlantic ocean and too warm conditions in the South Atlantic basin. The seasonality is poorly reproduced and the wind–SST coupling is weaker than observed so that altogether, and despite AMM-like variability in 20th century climate simulations, AMM is not the dominant Atlantic mode in all CMIP5 models ( Liu et al., 2013 ; Amaya et al., 2017 ). These biases in mean state translate into biases in modelling the mean ITCZ ( Flato et al., 2013 ). Similar biases were found in experiments using CMIP5 models but with different climate background states, such as Last Glacial Maximum, mid-Holocene and future scenario simulations ( Brierley and Wainer, 2018 ). Analyses of CMIP6 show encouraging results in the representation of Atlantic Niño and AMM modes of variability in terms of amplitude and seasonality. Some models now display reduced biases in the spatial structure of the modes and related explained variance but persistent errors still remain on average in the timing of the modes and in the coupled nature of the modes, that is, the strength of the link between ocean (SST, mixed layer depth) and atmospheric (wind) anomalies ( Richter and Tokinaga, 2020 ), as well as in the Atlantic Ocean equatorial east–west temperature gradient ( Section 3.5.1.2.2 , Figure 3.24).

There are some recent indications that increasing model resolution both vertically and horizontally, in the ocean and atmospheric component ( Richter, 2015 ; Small et al., 2015 ; Harlaß et al., 2018 ), could partly alleviate some tropical Atlantic biases in mean state ( Section 3.5.1.2.2 ), seasonality, interannual- to decadal-variability and associated teleconnectivity over land, such as with the West African monsoon ( Steinig et al., 2018 ). Results from CMIP6 tend to confirm that increasing resolution is not the unique way to address the biases in the tropical Atlantic ( Richter and Tokinaga, 2020 ). For instance, the inclusion of a stochastic physics scheme has a nearly equivalent effect in the improvement of the mean number and the strength distribution of tropical Atlantic cyclones ( Vidale et al., 2021 ).

( Section 2.4.4 assess that there is low confidence in any sustained changes to the AZM and AMM variability in instrumental observations. Moreover, any attribution of possible human influence on the Atlantic modes and associated teleconnections is limited by the poor fidelity of CMIP5 and CMIP6 models in reproducing the mean tropical Atlantic climate, its seasonality and variability, despite hints of some improvement in CMIP6, as well as other sources of uncertainties related to limited process understanding in the observations ( Foltz et al., 2019 ), the response of the tropical Atlantic climate to anthropogenic aerosol forcing ( Booth et al., 2012 ; Zhang et al., 2013a ) and the presence of strong multi-decadal fluctuations related to AMV ( Section 3.7.7 ) and cross-tropical basin interactions ( Martín-Rey et al., 2018 ; Cai et al., 2019 ). The fact that most models poorly represent the climatology and variability of the tropical Atlantic combined with the short observational record makes it difficult to place the recent observed changes in the context of internal multi-annual variability versus anthropogenic forcing.

In summary, based on CMIP5 and CMIP6 results, there is no robust evidence that the observed changes in either the Atlantic Niño or AMM modes and associated teleconnections over the second half of the 20th century are beyond the range of internal variability or have been influenced by natural or anthropogenic forcing. Considering the physical processes responsible for model biases in these modes, increasing resolution in both ocean and atmosphere components may be an opportunity for progress in the simulation of the tropical Atlantic changes as evidenced by some individual model studies ( Roberts et al., 2018 ), but this needs confirmation from a multi-model perspective.

3.7.6 Pacific Decadal Variability

Pacific Decadal Variability (PDV) is the generic term for the modes of variability in the Pacific Ocean that vary on decadal to inter-decadal time scales. PDV and its related teleconnections encompass the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO; Mantua et al., 1997 ; Zhang et al., 1997 ; Mantua and Hare, 2002 ), and an anomalous SST pattern in the North Pacific, as well as a broader structure associated with Pacific-wide SSTs termed the Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO; Power et al., 1999 ; Folland et al., 2002 ; Henley et al., 2015 ). Since the PDO and IPO indices are highly correlated, this section assesses them together as the PDV (Annex IV.2.6).

AR5 mentioned an overall limited level of evidence for both CMIP3 and CMIP5 evaluation of the Pacific modes at inter-decadal time scales, leading to low confidence statements about the models’ performance in reproducing PDV ( Flato et al., 2013 ) and similarly low confidence in the attribution of observed PDV changes to human influence ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ).

The implication of PDV in the observed slowdown of the GMST warming rate in the early 2000s (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1) has triggered considerable research on decadal climate variability and predictability since AR5 ( Meehl et al., 2013 , 2016b; England et al., 2014 ; Dai et al., 2015 ; Steinman et al., 2015 ; Kosaka and Xie, 2016 ; Cassou et al., 2018 ). Many studies find that the broad spatial characteristics of PDV are reasonably well represented in unforced climate models ( Newman et al., 2016 ; Henley, 2017 ) and in historical simulations in CMIP5 and CMIP6 (Figure 3.39), although there is sensitivity to the methodology used to remove the externally-forced component of the SST ( Bonfils and Santer, 2011 ; Xu and Hu, 2018 ). Compared with CMIP3 models, CMIP5 models exhibit overall slightly better performance in reproducing PDV and associated teleconnections ( Polade et al., 2013 ; Joshi and Kucharski, 2017 ), and also smaller inter-model spread ( Lyu et al., 2016 ). CMIP6 models on average show slightly improved reproduction of the PDV spatial structure than CMIP5 models (Figure 3.39a–c; Fasullo et al., 2020 ). SST anomalies in the subtropical South Pacific lobe are, however, too weak relative to the equatorial and North Pacific lobes in CMIP5 pre-industrial control and historical simulations ( Henley et al., 2017 ), a bias that remains in CMIP6 (Figure 3.39b).

Biases in the PDV temporal properties and amplitude are present in CMIP5 ( Cheung et al., 2017 ; Henley, 2017 ). While model evaluation is severely hampered by short observational records and incomplete observational coverage before satellite measurements started, the duration of PDV phases appears to be shorter in coupled models than in observations, and correspondingly the ratio of decadal to interannual variance is underestimated (Figure 3.39e,f; Henley et al., 2017 ). This apparent bias may be associated with overly biennial behaviour of Pacific trade wind variability and related ENSO activity, leaving too weak variability on decadal time scales ( Kociuba and Power, 2015 ). ENSO influence on the extratropical North Pacific Ocean at decadal time scales is also very diverse among both CMIP3 and CMIP5 models, being controlled by multiple factors ( Nidheesh et al., 2017 ). In terms of amplitude, the variance of the PDV index after decadal filtering is significantly weaker in the concatenated CMIP5 ensemble than the three observational estimates used in Figure 3.39e ( p <0.1 with an F-test). Consequently, the observed PDV fluctuations over the historical period often lie in the tails of the model distributions (Figure 3.39e,f). Even if one cannot rule out that the observed PDV over the instrumental era represents an exceptional period of variability, it is plausible that the tendency of the CMIP5 models to systematically underestimate the low frequency variance is due to an incomplete representation of decadal-scale mechanisms in these models. This situation is slightly improved in CMIP6 historical simulations but remains a concern ( Fasullo et al., 2020 ). The results of McGregor et al. (2018) suggest that the under-representation of the variability stems from Atlantic mean SST biases ( Section 3.5.1.2.2 ) through inter-basin coupling.

While PDV is primarily understood as an internal mode of variability ( Si and Hu, 2017 ), there are some indications that anthropogenically induced SST changes project onto PDV and have contributed to its past evolution ( Bonfils and Santer, 2011 ; Dong et al., 2014a ; Boo et al., 2015 ; Xu and Hu, 2018 ). However, the level of evidence is limited because of the difficulty in correctly separating internal versus externally forced components of the observed SST variations, and because it is unclear whether the dynamics of the PDV are operative in this forced SST change pattern. Over the last two to three decades which encompass the period of slower GMST increase (Cross-Chapter Box 3.1), Smith et al. (2016) found that anthropogenic aerosols have driven part of the PDV change toward its negative phase. A similar result is shown in Takahashi and Watanabe (2016) who found intensification of the Pacific Walker circulation in response to aerosol forcing ( Section 3.3.3.1.2 ). Indeed, CMIP6 models simulate a negative PDV trend since the 1980s (Figure 3.39f), which is much weaker than internal variability. However, a response to anthropogenic aerosols is not robustly identified in a large ensemble of a model ( Oudar et al., 2018 ), across CMIP5 models ( Hua et al., 2018 ), or in idealized model simulations ( Kuntz and Schrag, 2016 ). Alternatively, inter-basin teleconnections associated with the warming of the North Atlantic Ocean related to the mid-1990s phase shift of the AMV ( McGregor et al., 2014 ; Chikamoto et al., 2016 ; Kucharski et al., 2016 ; X. Li et al., 2016 a; Ruprich-Robert et al., 2017 ), and also warming in the Indian Ocean ( Luo et al., 2012 ; Mochizuki et al., 2016 ), could have favoured a PDV transition to its negative phase in the 2000s. Considering the possible influence of external forcing on Indian Ocean decadal variability ( Section 3.7.4 ) and AMV ( Section 3.7.7 ), any such human influence on PDV would be indirect through changes in these ocean basins, and then imported to the Pacific via inter-basin coupling. However, this human influence on AMV, and how consistently such inter-basin processes affect PDV phase shifts, are uncertain. Other modelling studies find that anthropogenic aerosols can influence the PDV ( Verma et al., 2019 ; Amiri-Farahani et al., 2020 ; Dow et al., 2020 ). It is however unclear whether and how much those forcings contributed to the observed variations of PDV. In CMIP6 models, the temporal correlation of the multi-model ensemble mean PDV index with its observational counterpart is insignificant and negligible (Figure 3.39f), suggesting that any externally-driven component in historical PDV variations was weak. Lastly, the multi-model ensemble mean computed from CMIP6 historical simulations shows slightly stronger variation than the CMIP5 counterpart, suggesting a greater simulated influence from external forcings in CMIP6. Still, the fraction of the forced signal to the total PDV is very low (Figure 3.39f), in contrast to AMV ( Section 3.7.7 ). Consistently, Liguori et al. (2020) estimate that the variance fraction of the externally-driven to total PDV is up to only 15% in a multi-model large ensemble of historical simulations. These findings support an assessment that PDV is mostly driven by internal variability since the pre-industrial era. The sensitivity of ensemble-mean PDV trends to the ensemble size ( Oudar et al., 2018 ), and the dominance of the ensemble spread over the ensemble mean in the 60-year trend of the equatorial Pacific zonal SST gradient in large ensemble simulations ( Watanabe et al., 2021 ), also support this statement.

In CMIP5 last millennium simulations, there is no consistency in temporal variations of PDV across the ensemble ( Fleming and Anchukaitis, 2016 ). This supports the notion that PDV is internal in nature. However, this issue remains difficult to assess because paleoclimate reconstructions of PDV have too poor a level of agreement for a rigorous model evaluation in past millennia ( Henley, 2017 ).

To conclude, there is high confidence that internal variability has been the main driver of the PDV since pre-industrial times, despite some modelling evidence for potential external influence. This assessment is supported by studies based on large ensemble simulations that found the dominance of internally-driven PDV, and the CMIP6-based assessment (Figure 3.39). As such, PDV is an important driver of decadal internal climate variability which limits detection of human influence on various aspects of decadal climate change on global to regional scales ( high confidence ). Model evaluation of PDV is hampered by short observational records, spatial incompleteness of observations before the satellite observation era, and poor agreement among paleoclimate reconstructions. Despite the limitations of these model-observation comparisons, CMIP5 models, on average, simulate broadly realistic spatial structures of the PDV, but with a clear bias in the South Pacific ( medium confidence ). CMIP5 models also very likely underestimate PDV magnitude. CMIP6 models tend to show better overall performance in spatial structure and magnitude of PDV, but there is low confidence in this assessment due to the lack of literature.

3.7.7 Atlantic Multi-decadal Variability

AR5 assessed, based on climate models, that the AMV was primarily internally-driven alongside some contribution from external forcings (mainly anthropogenic aerosols) over the late 20th century ( Bindoff et al., 2013 ; Flato et al., 2013 ). But AR5 also concluded that models show medium performance in reproducing the observed AMV, with difficulties in simulating the time scale, the spatial structure and the coherency between all the physical processes involved ( Flato et al., 2013 ).

Climate models analysed since AR5 continue to simulate AMV-like variability as part of their internal variability. This statement is mostly based on CMIP5 pre-industrial control and historical simulations ( Wouters et al., 2012 ; Schmith et al., 2014 ; Menary et al., 2015 ; Ruprich-Robert and Cassou, 2015 ; Brown et al., 2016b ; Chen et al., 2016 ; Kim et al., 2018a ) and is also true for the CMIP6 models ( Menary et al., 2018 ; Voldoire et al., 2019b ). Models also continue to support links to a wide array of remote climate influences through atmospheric teleconnections ( Martin et al., 2014 ; Ruprich-Robert et al., 2017 , 2018; Monerie et al., 2019 ; Qasmi et al., 2020 ; Ruggieri et al., 2021 ). Even if debate remains ( Clement et al., 2015 ; Cane et al., 2017 ; Mann et al., 2020 ), there is now stronger evidence for a crucial role of oceanic dynamics in internal AMV that is primarily linked to the AMOC and its interplay with the NAO ( Zhang et al., 2013a ; Müller et al., 2015 ; O’Reilly et al., 2016b , 2019a; Delworth et al., 2017 ; Zhang, 2017 ; Sun et al., 2019 ; Kim et al., 2020 ). However, considerable diversity in the spatio-temporal properties of the simulated AMV is found in both pre-industrial control and historical CMIP5 experiments ( Zhang and Wang, 2013 ; Wills et al., 2019 ). Such model diversity is presumably associated with the wide range of coupled processes associated with AMV ( Baker et al., 2017 ; Woollings et al., 2018a ) including large-scale atmospheric teleconnections and regional feedbacks relating to tropical clouds, Arctic sea ice in the subarctic basins and Saharan dust, whose relative importance and interactions across time scales are specific to each model ( Martin et al., 2014 ; Brown et al., 2016b ).

Additional studies since AR5 corroborate that CMIP5-era models tend to underestimate many aspects of observed AMV and its SST fingerprint. On average, the duration of modelled AMV episodes is too short, the magnitude of AMV is too weak and its basin-wide SST spatial structure is limited by the poor representation of the link between the tropical North Atlantic and the subpolar North Atlantic/Nordic seas ( Martin et al., 2014 ; Qasmi et al., 2017 ). Such mismatches between observed and simulated AMV (Figure 3.40c–e) have been associated with intrinsic model biases in both mean state ( Menary et al., 2015 ; Drews and Greatbatch, 2016 ) and variability in the ocean and overlying atmosphere. For instance, compared to available observational data CMIP5 models underestimate the ratio of decadal to interannual variability of the main drivers of AMV, namely the AMOC, NAO and related North Atlantic jet variations ( Section 3.7.1 ; Bracegirdle et al., 2018 ; Kim et al., 2018b ; Simpson et al., 2018 ; Yan et al., 2018 ), which has strong implications for the simulated temporal statistics of AMV, AMV-induced teleconnections ( Ault et al., 2012 ; Menary et al., 2015 ) and AMV predictability.

The increase of AMV variance in CMIP6 models (stronger magnitude and longer duration) seems to be explained by the enhanced variability in the subpolar North Atlantic SST (Figure 3.40b,c), which is particularly pronounced in some models, associated with greater variability in the AMOC ( Section 3.5.4.1 ; Voldoire et al., 2019a ; Boucher et al., 2020 ) and greater GMST multi-decadal variability ( Section 3.3.1 and Figure 3.40c–f; Voldoire et al., 2019b ; Parsons et al., 2020 ). The decadal variance in SST in the subpolar North Atlantic seems now to be slightly overestimated in CMIP6 compared to observational estimates, while the AMV-related tropical SST anomalies remain weaker in line with CMIP5 (Figure 3.40b). The mechanisms producing the tropical-extratropical relationship at decadal time scales remain poorly understood despite stronger evidence since AR5 for the importance of the subpolar gyre SST anomalies in generating tropical changes through atmospheric teleconnection ( Caron et al., 2015 ; Ruprich-Robert et al., 2017 ; Kim et al., 2020 ). Significant discrepancies remain in the simulated AMV spatial pattern when historical simulations are compared to multivariate observations ( Yan et al., 2018 ; Robson et al., 2020 ).

There is additional evidence since AR5 that external forcing has been playing an important role in shaping the timing and intensity of the observed AMV since pre-industrial times ( Bellomo et al., 2018 ; Andrews et al., 2020 ). The time synchronisation between observed and multi-model mean AMV SST indices is significant in both CMIP5 and CMIP6 historical simulations, while the explained variance of the forced response in CMIP6 appears stronger (Figure 3.40d–f). The competition between greenhouse gas warming and anthropogenic sulphate aerosol cooling has been proposed to be particularly important over the latter half of the 20th century ( Booth et al., 2012 ; Steinman et al., 2015 ; Murphy et al., 2017 ; Undorf et al., 2018a ; Haustein et al., 2019 ). The latest observed AMV shift from the cold to the warm phase in the mid-1990s at the surface ocean is well captured in the CMIP6 forced component and may be associated with the lagged response to increased AMOC due to strong anthropogenic aerosol forcing over 1955–1985 ( Menary et al., 2020 ) in combination with the rapid response through surface flux processes to declining aerosol forcing and increasing greenhouse gas influence since then. However, natural forcings may have also played a significant role. For instance, volcanic forcing has been shown to contribute in part to the cold phases of the AMV-related SST anomalies observed in the 20th century ( Terray, 2012 ; Bellucci et al., 2017 ; Swingedouw et al., 2017 ; Birkel et al., 2018 ). Over the last millennium, natural forcings including major volcanic eruptions and fluctuations in solar activity are thought to have driven a larger fraction of the multi-decadal variations in the AMV than in the industrial era, with some interplay with internal processes ( Otterå et al., 2010 ; Knudsen et al., 2014 ; Moffa-Sánchez et al., 2014 ; J. Wang et al., 2017 ; Malik et al., 2018 ; Mann et al., 2021 ), but other studies question the role of natural forcings over this period ( Zanchettin et al., 2014 ; Lapointe et al., 2020 ).

Model evaluation of the AMV phenomenon remains difficult because of short observational records (especially of detailed process-based observations), the lack of stationarity in the variance, spatial patterns and frequency of the AMV assessed from modelled SST ( Qasmi et al., 2017 ), difficulties in estimating the forced signals in both historical simulations and observations ( Tandon and Kushner, 2015 ), and because of probable interplay between internally and externally-driven processes ( Watanabe and Tatebe, 2019 ). Furthermore, models simulate a large range of historical anthropogenic aerosol forcing ( Smith et al., 2020 ) and questions often referred to as signal-to-noise paradox have been raised concerning the models’ ability to correctly simulate the magnitude of the response of AMV-related atmospheric circulation phenomena, such as the NAO ( Section 3.7.1 ), to both internally and externally generated changes ( Scaife and Smith, 2018 ). Related methodological and epistemological uncertainties also call into question the relevance of the traditional basin-average SST index to assessing the AMV phenomenon ( Zanchettin et al., 2014 ; Frajka-Williams et al., 2017 ; Haustein et al., 2019 ; Wills et al., 2019 ).

To summarize, results from CMIP5 and CMIP6 models together with new statistical techniques to evaluate the forced component of modelled and observed AMV, provide robust evidence that external forcings have modulated AMV over the historical period. In particular, anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols are thought to have played a role in the timing and intensity of the negative (cold) phase of AMV recorded from the mid-1960s to mid-1990s and subsequent warming ( medium confidence ). However, there is low confidence in the estimated magnitude of the human influence. The limited level of confidence is primarily explained by difficulties in accurately evaluating model performance in simulating AMV. The evaluation is severely hampered by short instrumental records but also, equally importantly, by the lack of detailed and coherent long-term process-based observations (for example of the AMOC, aerosol optical depth, surface fluxes and cloud changes), which limit our process understanding. In addition, studies often rely solely on simplistic SST indices that may be hard to interpret ( Zhang et al., 2016 ) and may mask critical physical inconsistencies in simulations of the AMV compared to observations ( Zhang, 2017 ).

3.8 Synthesis Across Earth System Components Expand section

3.8.1 multivariate attribution of climate change.

The observed global surface air temperature warming of 0.9°C to 1.2°C in 2010–2019 is much greater than can be explained by internal variability ( likely –0.2°C to +0.2°C) or natural forcings ( likely –0.1°C to +0.1°C) alone, but consistent with the assessed anthropogenic warming ( likely 0.8°C to 1.3°C; Section 3.3.1.1 ). It is very likely that human influence is the main driver of warming over land Section 3.3.1.1 ). Moreover, the atmosphere as a whole has warmed (Table 7.1), and it is very likely that human-induced greenhouse gas increases were the main driver of tropospheric warming since 1979 ( Section 3.3.1.2 ). It is virtually certain that greenhouse gas forcing was the main driver of the observed changes in hot and cold extremes over land at the global scale (Cross-Chapter Box 3.2).

As might be expected from a warming atmosphere, moisture in the troposphere has increased and precipitation patterns have changed. Human influence has likely contributed to the observed changes in humidity and precipitation ( Section 3.3.2 ). It is likely that human influence, in particular due to greenhouse gas forcing, is the main driver of the observed intensification of heavy precipitation in global land regions during recent decades (Cross-Chapter Box 3.2). The pattern of ocean salinity changes indicate that fresh regions are becoming fresher and that salty regions are becoming saltier as a result of changes in ocean-atmosphere fluxes through evaporation and precipitation ( high confidence ) making it extremely likely that human influence has contributed to observed near-surface and subsurface salinity changes since the mid-20th century ( Section 3.5.2.2 ). Taken together, this evidence indicates a human influence on the water cycle.

It is very likely that human influence was the main driver of Arctic sea ice loss since the late 1970s ( Section 3.4.1.1 ), and very likely that it contributed to the observed reductions in Northern Hemisphere springtime snow cover since 1950 ( Section 3.4.2 ). Human influence was very likely the main driver of the recent global, near-universal retreat of glaciers and it is very likely that it contributed to the observed surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet over the past two decades ( Section 3.4.3.2.1 ). It is extremely likely that human influence was the main driver of the ocean heat content increase observed since the 1970s ( Section 3.5.1.3 ), and very likely that human influence was the main driver of the observed GMSL rise since at least 1970 ( Section 3.5.3.2 ).

Combining the evidence from across the climate system (Sections 3.3–3.7) increases the level of confidence in the attribution of observed climate change to human influence and reduces the uncertainties associated with assessments based on a single variable. From this combined evidence, it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land components of the global climate system, taken together.

3.8.2 Multivariate Model Evaluation

Similar to the assessment of multivariate attribution of climate change in the previous section, this section covers the performance of the models across different variables (Sections 3.8.2.1) and different classes of models ( Section 3.8.2.2 ). Here the focus is on a system-wide assessment using integrative measures of model performance that characterize model performance using multiple diagnostic fields derived from multi-model ensembles.

3.8.2.1 Integrative Measures of Model Performance

The purpose of this section is to use multivariate analyses to address how well models simulate present-day and historical climate. For every diagnostic field considered, model performance is compared to one or multiple observational references, and the quality of the simulation is expressed as a single number, for example a correlation coefficient or a root mean square difference versus the observational reference. By simultaneously assessing different performance indices, model improvements can be quantified, similarities in behaviour between different models become apparent, and dependencies between various indices become evident ( Gleckler et al., 2008 ; Waugh and Eyring, 2008 ).

AR5 found significant differences between models in the simulation of mean climate in the CMIP5 ensemble when measured against meteorological reanalyses and observations ( Flato et al., 2013 ), see also Stouffer et al. (2017) . The AR5 determined that for the diagnostic fields analysed, the models usually compared similarly against two different reference datasets, suggesting that model errors were generally larger than observational uncertainties or other differences between the observational references. In agreement with previous assessments, the CMIP5 multi-model mean generally performed better than individual models ( Annan and Hargreaves, 2011 ; Rougier, 2016 ). The AR5 considered 13 atmospheric fields in its assessment for the instrumental period but did not assess multi-variate model performance in other climate domains (e.g., ocean, land, and sea ice). The AR5 found only modest improvement regarding the simulation of climate for two periods of the Earth’s history (the Last Glacial Maximum and the mid-Holocene) between CMIP5 and previous paleoclimate simulations. Similarly, for the modern period only modest, incremental progress was found between CMIP3 and CMIP5 regarding the simulation of precipitation and radiation. The representation of clouds also showed improvement, but remained a key challenge in climate modelling ( Flato et al., 2013 ).

The type of multi-variate analysis of models presented in AR5 remains critical to building confidence for example in projections of climate change. It is expanded here to the previous-generation CMIP3 and present-generation CMIP6 models and also to more variables and more climate domains, covering land and ocean as well as sea ice. The multi-variate evaluation of these three generations of models is performed relative to the observational datasets listed in Annex I, Table AI.1. For many of these datasets, a rigorous characterization of the observational uncertainty is not available, see discussion in Chapter 2. Here, as much as possible, multiple independent observational datasets are used. Disagreements among them would cause differences in model scoring, indicating that observational uncertainties may be substantial compared to model errors. Conversely, similar scores against different observational datasets would suggest model biases may be larger than the observational uncertainty.

Regarding model performance for the ocean and the cryosphere (Figure 3.42b), it is apparent that for many models there are substantial differences between the scores for Arctic and Antarctic sea ice concentration. This might suggest that it is not sea ice physics directly that is driving such differences in performance but rather other influences, such as differences in geography, the role of large ice shelves (which are absent in the Arctic), or large-scale ocean dynamics. As for atmospheric variables, progress is evident also across all four ocean and ten land variables from CMIP5 to CMIP6.

In summary, CMIP6 models perform generally better for a basket of variables covering mean historical climate across the atmosphere, ocean, and land domains than previous-generation and older models ( high confidence ). Earth System models characterized by additional biogeochemical feedbacks often perform at least as well as related more constrained, lower-complexity models lacking these feedbacks ( medium confidence ). In many cases, the models score similarly against both observational references, indicating that model errors are usually larger than observational uncertainties ( high confidence ). Moreover, synthesizing across Sections 3.3–3.7, we assess that the CMIP6 multi-model mean captures most aspects of observed climate change well ( high confidence ).

In addition to the multivariate assessments of simulations of the recent historical period, simulations of selected periods of the Earth’s more distant history can be used to benchmark climate models by exposing them to climate forcings that are radically different from the present and recent past ( Harrison et al., 2015 , 2016; Kageyama et al., 2018 ; Tierney et al., 2020a ). These time periods provide an out-of-sample test of models because they are not in general used in the process of model development. They encompass a range of climate drivers, such as volcanic and solar forcing for the Last Millennium, orbital forcing for the mid-Holocene and Last Interglacial, and changes in greenhouse gases and ice sheets for the LGM, mid-Pliocene Warm Period, and early Eocene (Sections 2.2 and 2.3). These drivers led to climate changes, including in surface temperature ( Section 2.3.1.1 ) and the hydrological cycle ( Section 2.3.1.3.1 ), which are described by paleoclimate proxies that have been synthesized to support evaluations of models on a global and regional scale. However, the more sparse, indirect, and regionally incomplete climate information available from paleo-archives motivates a different form of the multivariate analysis of simulations covering these periods versus the equivalent for the historical period, as described below.

AR5 found that reconstructions and simulations of past climates both show similar responses in terms of large-scale patterns of climate change, such as polar amplification ( Flato et al., 2013 ; Masson-Delmotte et al., 2013 ). However, for several regional signals (e.g., the north–south temperature gradient in Europe and regional precipitation changes), the magnitude of change seen in the proxies relative to the pre-industrial period was underestimated by the models. When benchmarking CMIP5/PMIP3 models against reconstructions of the mid-Holocene and LGM, AR5 found only a slight improvement compared with earlier model versions across a range of variables. For the Last Interglacial, it was noted that the magnitude of observed annual mean warming in the Northern Hemisphere was only reached in summer in the models. For the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, it was noted that both proxies and models showed a polar amplification of temperature compared with the pre-industrial period, but a formal model evaluation was not carried out.

Polar amplification in the LGM, mid-Pliocene Warm Period, and Early Eocene Climatic Optimum (EECO) simulations is assessed in Section 7.4.4.1.2. Here we focus on the mid-Holocene and the LGM, which have been a part of AMIP or CMIP through several assessment cycles, and as such serve as a reference to quantify regional model-data agreement from one IPCC assessment to another. We compare the results from 15 CMIP6 models using the PMIP4 protocol (CMIP6-PMIP4), with non-CMIP6 models using the PMIP4 protocol, with PMIP3 models, and with regional temperature and precipitation changes from proxies for the mid-Holocene (Figure 3.44b). For six out of seven variables shown, the CMIP6 multi-model mean captures the correct sign of the change. For five out of seven of them the CMIP6 ensemble mean is within the reconstructed range. For the other two variables (changes in the mean temperature of the warmest month over North America and in the mean annual precipitation over West Africa) nearly all PMIP4 and PMIP3 models are outside the reconstructed range. CMIP6 models show regional patterns of temperature changes similar to the PMIP3 ensemble ( Brierley et al., 2020 ), but the slight mid-Holocene cooling in PMIP4 compared with PMIP3, probably associated with lower imposed mid-Holocene carbon dioxide concentrations ( Otto-Bliesner et al., 2017 ), improves the regional model performance for summer and winter temperatures (Figure 3.44b). However, this cooling also results in a CMIP6 mid-Holocene GSAT that lies further from the assessed range (Figure 3.44a). All models show an expansion of the monsoon areas from the pre-industrial to the mid-Holocene simulations in the Northern Hemisphere, but this expansion in some cases is only large enough to cancel out the bias in the pre-industrial control simulations ( Section 3.3.3.2 ; Brierley et al., 2020 ). There is a slight improvement in representing the northward expansion of the West African monsoon region in PMIP4 compared with PMIP3 (Figures 3.11 and 3.44b).

Fourteen simulations of the LGM climate have been produced following the CMIP6-PMIP4 protocol using 11 models, five of which are from the latest CMIP6 generation. The multi-model-mean global cooling simulated by these models is close to that simulated by the CMIP5-PMIP3 ensemble, but the range of results is larger. The increase in the range is largely due to the inclusion of CESM2 which simulates a much larger cooling than the other PMIP4 models (Figure 3.44a). This is consistent with its larger climate sensitivity (see also ( Section 3.3.1.1 ; Zhu et al., 2021 ). The other models on average also simulate slightly larger cooling in PMIP4 versus PMIP3 ( Kageyama et al., 2017 , 2021a). The PMIP4 multi-model mean is within the range of reconstructed regional averages for four out of seven regional variables; this is unchanged from PMIP3 but for different variables (Figure 3.44c). For all fields, the results of many individual models are outside the reconstructed range. For two variables out of seven (changes in the mean temperature of the warmest month and mean annual precipitation over Western Europe) no model is within the range of the reconstructions. This analysis is strengthened compared with the equivalent analysis in AR5 because it is based on larger and improved reconstructions ( Cleator et al., 2020 ). Most CMIP6-PMIP4 models simulate a slightly stronger AMOC in the LGM, but no strong deepening of the AMOC ( Kageyama et al., 2021a ), while most other PMIP4 models simulate a strengthening and strong deepening of the AMOC, as was the case for the PMIP3 models ( Muglia and Schmittner, 2015 ; Sherriff-Tadano et al., 2018 ). Only one model (CESM1.2) shows a shoaling of LGM AMOC which is consistent with reconstructions ( Marzocchi and Jansen, 2017 ; Sherriff-Tadano et al., 2018 ).

17 PMIP4 models completed Last Interglacial simulations ( Otto-Bliesner et al., 2021 ). The comparison to reconstructions is generally good, except for some discrepancies, such as for upwelling systems in the South East Atlantic or discrepancies which may result from local melting of remnant ice sheets absent in the Last Interglacial simulation protocol. All models simulate a decrease in Arctic sea ice in summer, commensurate with increased summer insolation, while some models even simulate a large or complete loss ( Guarino et al., 2020 ; Kageyama et al., 2021b ). Sea ice reconstructions for the central Arctic are, however, too uncertain to evaluate this behaviour. The Last Interglacial simulations indicate a clear relationship between simulated sea ice loss and model responses to increased greenhouse gas forcing ( Kageyama et al., 2021b ; Otto-Bliesner et al., 2021 ).

Overall, the PMIP multi-model means agree very well (within 0.5°C of the assessed range) with GSAT reconstructed from proxies across multiple time periods, spanning a range from 6°C colder than pre-industrial (Last Glacial Maximum) to 14°C warmer than pre-industrial (Early Eocene Climate Optimum) ( high confidence ). During the orbitally-forced mid-Holocene, the CMIP6 multi-model mean captures the sign of the regional changes in temperature and precipitation in most regions assessed, and there have been some regional improvements compared to AR5 ( medium confidence ). The limited number of CMIP6 simulations of the LGM hinders model evaluation of the multi-model mean, but for both LGM and mid-Holocene, models tend to underestimate the magnitude of large changes ( high confidence ). Some long-standing model-data discrepancies, such as a dry bias in North Africa in the mid-Holocene, have not improved in CMIP6 compared with PMIP3 ( high confidence ).

3.8.2.2 Process Representation in Different Classes of Models

Based on new scientific insights and newly available observations, many improvements have been made to models from CMIP5 to CMIP6, including changes in the representation of physics of the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and land surface. In many cases, changes in the detailed representation of cloud and aerosol processes have been implemented. The new generation of CMIP6 climate models also features increases in spatial resolution, as well as inclusion of additional Earth system processes and new components (see further details in Section 1.5.3.1 and in Tables AII.5 and AII.6). Such changes to model physics and resolution are often designed to improve the fitness-for-purpose of a model such as for projecting regional aspects of climate (Section 10.3) or to more fully represent feedbacks to make the models more fit for long-term climate projections affected for example by carbon cycle feedbacks (see also ( Section 1.5.3.1 ).

Factors affecting model performance include resolution, the type of dynamical core (spectral, finite difference or finite volume), physics parameters and parameterisations, model structure, for example, many of the coupled HighResMIP models ( Haarsma et al., 2016 ) use the NEMO ocean model, affecting model diversity, and the range and degree of process realism (e.g., for aerosols, atmospheric chemistry and other Earth System components). This section particularly explores the influence of model resolution and of complexity on model performance (see also Section 8.5.1).

A key advance in CMIP6 compared to CMIP5 is the presence of high-resolution models that have participated in HighResMIP. Resolution alone can significantly affect a model’s performance, with some effects propagating to the global scale. Recent studies have shown that enhancing the horizontal resolution of models is seen to significantly affect aspects of large-scale circulation as well as improve the simulation of small-scale processes and extremes when compared to CMIP3 and CMIP5 models (see also Section 11.4.3; Haarsma et al., 2016 ), with some models approaching 10 km resolution in the atmosphere ( Kodama et al., 2021 ) or ocean ( Caldwell et al., 2019 ; Gutjahr et al., 2019 ; Roberts et al., 2019 ; Chang et al., 2020 ; Semmler et al., 2020 ).

As discussed in Section 3.3 , CMIP6 models reproduce observed large-scale mean surface temperature patterns as well as their CMIP5 predecessors, but biases in surface temperature in the mean of HighResMIP models are smaller than those in the mean of the corresponding standard resolution CMIP6 configurations of the same models ( Section 3.3.1.1 and Figure 3.3). The extent and causes of improvements due to increased horizontal resolutions in the atmosphere and ocean domains depend on the model ( Kuhlbrodt et al., 2018 ; Roberts et al., 2018 , 2019; Sidorenko et al., 2019 ), although they typically involve better process representation (for example of ocean currents and atmospheric storms) which can lead to reduced biases in top of atmosphere radiation and cloudiness. Precipitation has likewise improved in CMIP6 versus CMIP5 models, but biases remain. The high resolution (<25 km) class of models participating in HighResMIP compares regionally better against observations than the standard resolution CMIP6 models (of order 100 km, Figure 3.13; Section 3.3.2 ), partly because of an improved representation of orographic (mountain-induced) precipitation which constitutes a major fraction of precipitation on land, but other processes also play an important role ( Vannière et al., 2019 ). However, there are also large parts of the tropical ocean where precipitation in high-resolution models is not improved compared to standard resolution CMIP6 models ( Vannière et al., 2019 ).

Additionally, the representation of surface and deeper ocean mean temperature is improved in models with higher horizontal resolution (Sections 3.5.1.1 and 3.5.1.2) with systematic improvements in coupled tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature and precipitation biases at higher resolutions ( Roberts et al., 2019 , single model; Vannière et al., 2019 , multi-model), the North Atlantic cold bias ( Bock et al., 2020 , multi-model; Roberts et al., 2018 , 2019; Caldwell et al., 2019 ; all single models) as well as deep-ocean biases ( Small et al., 2014 ; Griffies et al., 2015 ; Caldwell et al., 2019 ; Gutjahr et al., 2019 ; Roberts et al., 2019 ; Chang et al., 2020 , all single model studies). Atlantic ocean transports (heat and volume) are also generally improved compared to observations ( Grist et al., 2018 ; Caldwell et al., 2019 ; Docquier et al., 2019 ; Roberts et al., 2019 , 2020c; Chang et al., 2020 ), as well as some aspects of air-sea interactions (P. Wu et al., 2019 , single model; Bellucci et al., 2021 , multi-model). However, warm-biased sea surface temperatures in the Southern Ocean are worse in comparison to standard resolution CMIP6 models ( Bock et al., 2020 ). The AR5 noted problems with the simulation of clouds in this region which were later attributed to a lack of supercooled liquid clouds ( Bodas-Salcedo et al., 2016 ). Mesoscale ocean processes are critical to maintaining the Southern Ocean stratification and response to wind forcing ( Marshall and Radko, 2003 ; Hallberg and Gnanadesikan, 2006 ), and their explicit representation requires even higher ocean resolution ( Hallberg, 2013 ). Similarly, atmospheric convection remains unresolved even in the highest-resolution climate models participating in HighResMIP. However, there is also evidence of improvements in the frequency, distribution and interannual variability of tropical cyclones in HighResMIP ( Roberts et al., 2020a , b), particularly in the Northern Hemisphere (see further discussion in Section 11.7.1.3), and their interaction with the ocean ( Scoccimarro et al., 2017 , single model), as well as the global moisture budget ( Vannière et al., 2019 ). At higher resolution the track density of tropical cyclones is increased practically everywhere where tropical cyclones occur. Simulation of some climate extremes is shown to be improved at higher resolution including explosively developing extra-tropical cyclones ( Vries et al., 2019 ; Jiaxiang et al., 2020 ), blocking ( Section 3.3.3.3 ; Fabiano et al., 2020 ; Schiemann et al., 2020 ) and European extreme precipitation due to a better representation of the North Atlantic storm track ( van Haren et al., 2015 ) and orographic boundary conditions ( Schiemann et al., 2018 ).

In CMIP6 a number of Earth system models have increased the realism by which key biogeochemical aspects of the coupled Earth system are represented, affecting, for example, the carbon and nitrogen cycles, aerosols, and atmospheric chemistry (e.g., Cao et al., 2018 ; Gettelman et al., 2019 ; Lin et al., 2019 ; Mauritsen et al., 2019 ; Séférian et al., 2019 ; Sellar et al., 2019 ; Sidorenko et al., 2019 ; Swart et al., 2019 ; Dunne et al., 2020 ; Seland et al., 2020 ; Wu et al., 2020 ; Ziehn et al., 2020 ). In addition to increased process realism, the level of coupling between the physical climate and biogeochemical components of the Earth system has also been enhanced in some models ( Mulcahy et al., 2020 ) as well as across different biogeochemical components (see Section 5.4 for a discussion and Table 5.4 for an overview). For example, the nitrogen cycle is now simulated in several ESMs ( Zaehle et al., 2015 ; Davies-Barnard et al., 2020 ). This advance accounts for the fertilization effect nitrogen availability has on vegetation and carbon uptake, reducing uncertainties in the simulations of the carbon uptake responses to physical climate change ( Section 3.6.1 ) and to CO 2 increases ( Arora et al., 2020 ), thus improving confidence in the simulated airborne fraction of CO 2 emissions ( Jones and Friedlingstein, 2020 ) and better constraining remaining carbon budgets (Section 5.5). Such advances also allow investigation of land-based climate change mitigation options (e.g., through changes in land management and associated terrestrial carbon uptake ( Mahowald et al., 2017 ; Pongratz et al., 2018 )) or interactions between different facets of the managed Earth system, such as interactions between mitigation efforts targeting climate warming and air quality ( West et al., 2013 ). A number of developments also explicitly target improved simulation of the past.

Further such ESM developments include: (i) Apart from the nitrogen cycle, extending terrestrial carbon cycle models to simulate interactions between the carbon cycle and other nutrient cycles, such as phosphorus, that are known to play an important role in limiting future plant uptake of CO 2 ( Zaehle et al., 2015 ). (ii) Introducing explicit coupling between interactive atmospheric chemistry and aerosol schemes ( Gettelman et al., 2019 ; Sellar et al., 2019 ), which has been shown to affect estimates of historical aerosol radiative forcing ( Karset et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, interactive treatment of atmospheric chemistry in a full ESM supports investigation of interactions between climate and air quality mitigation efforts, such as in AerChemMIP ( Collins et al., 2017 ), as well as interactions between stratospheric ozone recovery and global warming ( Morgenstern et al., 2018 ). (iii) Coupling between components of Earth system models has been extended to increase their utility for studying future interactions across the full Earth system, such as between ocean biogeochemistry and cloud-aerosol processes ( Mulcahy et al., 2020 ), and vegetation and impacts on dust production ( Kok et al., 2018 ), production of secondary organic aerosols (SOA, Zhao et al., 2017 ) and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), whereby enhanced CO 2 fertilization of land vegetation causes changes in regional surface albedo ( Andrews et al., 2019 ). Increased coupling between physical climate and biogeochemical processes in a single ESM, along with an increased number of interactively represented processes, such as permafrost thaw, vegetation, wildfires and continental ice sheets increases our ability to investigate the potential for abrupt and interactive changes in the Earth system (see Sections 4.7.3 and 5.4.9, and Box 5.1). Table 5.4 provides an overview of recent advances in representing the carbon cycle in ESMs.

In summary, both high-resolution and high-complexity models have been evaluated as part of CMIP6. In comparison with standard resolution CMIP6 models, higher resolution probed under the HighResMIP activity ( Haarsma et al., 2016 ) improves aspects of the simulation of climate (particularly concerning sea surface temperature) but discrepancies remain and there are some regions, such as parts of the Southern Ocean, where currently attainable resolution produces inferior performance ( high confidence ). Such model behaviour can indicate deficiencies in model physics that are not simply associated with resolution. In several cases, high-complexity ESMs that include additional interactions between Earth system components and thus have potential for additional associated model errors nevertheless perform as well as their low-complexity counterparts, illustrating that interactively simulating these Earth System components as part of the climate system is now well established.

Acknowledgements

Graphic developers: Bettina K. Gier (Germany), Birgit Hassler (Germany), Soufiane Karmouche (Germany, Morocco), Seungmok Paik (Republic of Korea), Min-Gyu Seong (Republic of Korea)

Data providers: Leopold Haimberger (Austria), Lawrence Mudryk (Canada), Dirk Notz (Germany)

Frequently Asked Questions Expand section

Faq 3.1 | how do we know humans are responsible for climate change.

The dominant role of humans in driving recent climate change is clear. This conclusion is based on a synthesis of information from multiple lines of evidence, including direct observations of recent changes in Earth’s climate; analyses of tree rings, ice cores, and other long-term records documenting how the climate has changed in the past; and computer simulations based on the fundamental physics that governs the climate system.

Climate is influenced by a range of factors. There are two main natural drivers of variations in climate on time scales of decades to centuries. The first is variations in the sun’s activity, which alter the amount of incoming energy from the sun. The second is large volcanic eruptions, which increase the number of small particles (aerosols) in the upper atmosphere that reflect sunlight and cool the surface–an effect that can last for several years (see also FAQ 3.2). The main human drivers of climate change are increases in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and of aerosols from burning fossil fuels, land use and other sources. The greenhouse gases trap infrared radiation near the surface, warming the climate. Aerosols, like those produced naturally by volcanoes, on average cool the climate by increasing the reflection of sunlight. Multiple lines of evidence demonstrate that human drivers are the main cause of recent climate change.

The current rates of increase of the concentration of the major greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) are unprecedented over at least the last 800,000 years. Several lines of evidence clearly show that these increases are the results of human activities. The basic physics underlying the warming effect of greenhouse gases on the climate has been understood for more than a century, and our current understanding has been used to develop the latest generation climate models (see FAQ 3.3). Like weather forecasting models, climate models represent the state of the atmosphere on a grid and simulate its evolution over time based on physical principles. They include a representation of the ocean, sea ice and the main processes important in driving climate and climate change.

Results consistently show that such climate models can only reproduce the observed warming (black line in FAQ 3.1, Figure 1) when including the effects of human activities (grey band in FAQ 3.1, Figure 1), in particular the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. These climate models show a dominant warming effect of greenhouse gas increases (red band, which shows the warming effects of greenhouse gases by themselves), which has been partly offset by the cooling effect of increases in atmospheric aerosols (blue band). By contrast, simulations that include only natural processes, including internal variability related to El Niño and other similar variations, as well as variations in the activity of the sun and emissions from large volcanoes (green band in FAQ 3.1, Figure 1), are not able to reproduce the observed warming. The fact that simulations including only natural processes show much smaller temperature increases indicates that natural processes alone cannot explain the strong rate of warming observed. The observed rate can only be reproduced when human influence is added to the simulations.

Moreover, the dominant effect of human activities is apparent not only in the warming of global surface temperature, but also in the pattern of warming in the lower atmosphere and cooling in the stratosphere, warming of the ocean, melting of sea ice, and many other observed changes. An additional line of evidence for the role of humans in driving climate change comes from comparing the rate of warming observed over recent decades with that which occurred prior to human influence on climate. Evidence from tree rings and other paleoclimate records shows that the rate of increase of global surface temperature observed over the past fifty years exceeded that which occurred in any previous 50-year period over the past 2000 years (see FAQ 2.1).

Taken together, this evidence shows that humans are the dominant cause of observed global warming over recent decades.

FAQ 3.1, Figure 1 | Observed warming (1850–2019) is only reproduced in simulations including human influence. Global surface temperature changes in observations, compared to climate model simulations of the response to all human and natural forcings (grey band), greenhouse gases only (red band), aerosols and other human drivers only (blue band) and natural forcings only (green band). Solid coloured lines show the multi-model mean, and coloured bands show the 5–95% range of individual simulations.

FAQ 3.2 | What is Natural Variability and How Has it Influenced Recent Climate Changes?

Natural variability refers to variations in climate that are caused by processes other than human influence. It includes variability that is internally generated within the climate system and variability that is driven by natural external factors. Natural variability is a major cause of year-to-year changes in global surface climate and can play a prominent role in trends over multiple years or even decades. But the influence of natural variability is typically small when considering trends over periods of multiple decades or longer. When estimated over the entire historical period (1850–2020), the contribution of natural variability to global surface warming of –0.23°C to +0.23°C is small compared to the warming of about 1.1°C observed during the same period, which has been almost entirely attributed to the human influence.

Paleoclimatic records (indirect measurements of climate that can extend back many thousands of years) and climate models all show that global surface temperatures have changed significantly over a wide range of time scales in the past. One of these reasons is natural variability , which refers to variations in climate that are either internally generated within the climate system or externally driven by natural changes. Internal natural variability corresponds to a redistribution of energy within the climate system (for example via atmospheric circulation changes similar to those that drive the daily weather) and is most clearly observed as regional, rather than global, fluctuations in surface temperature. External natural variability can result from changes in the Earth’s orbit, small variations in energy received from the sun, or from major volcanic eruptions. Although large orbital changes are related to global climate changes of the past, they operate on very long time scales (i.e., thousands of years). As such, they have displayed very little change over the past century and have had very little influence on temperature changes observed over that period. On the other hand, volcanic eruptions can strongly cool the Earth, but this effect is short-lived and their influence on surface temperatures typically fades within a decade of the eruption.

To understand how much of observed recent climate change has been caused by natural variability (a process referred to as attribution), scientists use climate model simulations. When only natural factors are used to force climate models, the resulting simulations show variations in climate on a wide range of time scales in response to volcanic eruptions, variations in solar activity, and internal natural variability. However, the influence of natural climate variability typically decreases as the time period gets longer, such that it only has mild effects on multi-decadal and longer trends (FAQ 3.2, Figure 1).

Consequently, over periods of a couple of decades or less, natural climate variability can dominate the human-induced surface warming trend – leading to periods with stronger or weaker warming, and sometimes even cooling (FAQ 3.2, Figure 1, left and centre). Over longer periods, however, the effect of natural variability is relatively small (FAQ 3.2, Figure 1, right). For instance, over the entire historical period (1850–2019), natural variability is estimated to have caused between –0.23°C and +0.23°C of the observed surface warming of about 1.1°C. This means that the bulk of the warming has been almost entirely attributed to human activities, particularly emissions of greenhouse gases (FAQ 3.1).

Another way to picture natural variability and human influence is to think of a person walking a dog. The path of the walker represents the human-induced warming, while their dog represents natural variability. Looking at global surface temperature changes over short periods is akin to focusing on the dog. The dog sometimes moves ahead of the owner and other times behind. This is similar to natural variability that can weaken or amplify warming on the short term. In both cases it is difficult to predict where the dog will be or how the climate will evolve in the near future. However, if we pull back and focus on the slow steady steps of the owner, the path of the dog is much clearer and more predictable, as it follows the path of its owner. Similarly, human influence on the climate is much clearer over longer time periods.

FAQ 3.3 | Are Climate Models Improving?

Yes, climate models have improved and continue to do so, becoming better at capturing complex and small-scale processes and at simulating present-day mean climate conditions. This improvement can be measured by comparing climate simulations against historical observations. Both the current and previous generations of models show that increases in greenhouse gases cause global warming. While past warming is well simulated by the new generation models as a group, some individual models simulate past warming that is either below or above what is observed. The information about how well models simulate past warming, as well as other insights from observations and theory, are used to refine this Report’s projections of global warming.

Climate models are important tools for understanding past, present and future climate change. They are sophisticated computer programs that are based on fundamental laws of physics of the atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land. Climate models perform their calculations on a three-dimensional grid made of small bricks or ‘gridcells’ of about 100 km across. Processes that occur on scales smaller than the model grid cells (such as the transformation of cloud moisture into rain) are treated in a simplified way. This simplification is done differently in different models. Some models include more processes and complexity than others; some represent processes in finer detail (smaller grid cells) than others. Hence the simulated climate and climate change vary between models.

Climate modelling started in the 1950s and, over the years, models have become increasingly sophisticated as computing power, observations and our understanding of the climate system have advanced. The models used in the IPCC First Assessment Report published in 1990 correctly reproduced many aspects of climate (FAQ 1.1). The actual evolution of the climate since then has confirmed these early projections, when accounting for the differences between the simulated scenarios and actual emissions. Models continue to improve and get better and better at simulating the large variety of important processes that affect climate. For example, many models now simulate complex interactions between different aspects of the Earth system, such as the uptake of carbon dioxide by vegetation on land and by the ocean, and the interaction between clouds and air pollutants. While some models are becoming more comprehensive, others are striving to represent processes at higher resolution, for example to better represent the vortices and swirls in currents responsible for much of the transport of heat in the ocean.

Scientists evaluate the performance of climate models by comparing historical climate model simulations to observations. This evaluation includes comparison of large-scale averages as well as more detailed regional and seasonal variations. There are two important aspects to consider: (i) how models perform individually and (ii) how they perform as a group. The average of many models often compares better against observations than any individual model, since errors in representing detailed processes tend to cancel each other out in multi-model averages.

As an example, FAQ 3.3 Figure 1 compares simulations from the three most recent generations of models (available around 2008, 2013 and 2021) with observations of three climate variables. It shows the correlation between simulated and observed patterns, where a value of 1 represents perfect agreement. Many individual models of the new generation perform significantly better, as indicated by values closer to 1. As a group, each generation out-performs the previous generation: the multi-model average (shown by the longer lines) is progressively closer to 1. The vertical extent of the colored bars indicates the range of model performance across each group. The top of the bar moves up with each generation, indicating improved performance of the best performing models from one generation to the next. In the case of precipitation, the performance of the worst performing models is similar in the two most recent model generations, increasing the spread across models.

Developments in the latest generation of climate models, including new and better representation of physical, chemical and biological processes, as well as higher resolution, have improved the simulation of many aspects of the Earth system. These simulations, along with the evaluation of the ability of the models to simulate past warming as well as the updated assessment of the temperature response to a doubling of CO 2 in the atmosphere, are used to estimate the range of future global warming (FAQ 7.3).

FAQ 3.3, Figure 1 | Pattern correlations between models and observations of three different variables: surface air temperature, precipitation and sea level pressure. Results are shown for the three most recent generations of models, from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP): CMIP3 (orange), CMIP5 (blue) and CMIP6 (purple). Individual model results are shown as short lines, along with the corresponding ensemble average (long line). For the correlations the yearly averages of the models are compared with the reference observations for the period 1980–1999, with 1 representing perfect similarity between the models and observations. CMIP3 simulations performed in 2004-2008 were assessed in the IPCC Fourth Assessment, CMIP5 simulations performed in 2011–2013 were assessed in the IPCC Fifth Assessment, and CMIP6 simulations performed in 2018–2021 are assessed in this Report. Open figure

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Zuo, J.-Q., W.-J. Li, and H.-L. Ren, 2013: Representation of the Arctic Oscillation in the CMIP5 Models. Advances in Climate Change Research , 4(4) , 242–249, doi: 10.3724/sp.j.1248.2013.242 .

Zuo, M., T. Zhou, and W. Man, 2019: Hydroclimate Responses over Global Monsoon Regions Following Volcanic Eruptions at Different Latitudes. Journal of Climate , 32(14) , 4367–4385, doi: 10.1175/jcli-d-18-0707.1 .

1 In this chapter, ‘greenhouse gases’ refers to well-mixed greenhouse gases.

2 In this chapter, ‘main driver’ means responsible for more than 50% of the change.

3 In this chapter the phrase ‘human influence has contributed to’ an observed change means that the response to human influence is non-zero and consistent in sign with the observed change.

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Fact Sheets

The regional and crosscutting fact sheets give a snapshot of the key findings, distilled from the relevant Chapters.

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs explain important processes and aspects that are relevant to the whole report for a broad audience

234 authors from 64 countries assessed the understanding of the current state of the climate, including how it is changing and the role of human influence.

The Basics of Climate Change

Greenhouse gases affect Earth’s energy balance and climate

The Sun serves as the primary energy source for Earth’s climate. Some of the incoming sunlight is reflected directly back into space, especially by bright surfaces such as ice and clouds, and the rest is absorbed by the surface and the atmosphere. Much of this absorbed solar energy is re-emitted as heat (longwave or infrared radiation). The atmosphere in turn absorbs and re-radiates heat, some of which escapes to space. Any disturbance to this balance of incoming and outgoing energy will affect the climate. For example, small changes in the output of energy from the Sun will affect this balance directly.

If all heat energy emitted from the surface passed through the atmosphere directly into space, Earth’s average surface temperature would be tens of degrees colder than today. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, act to make the surface much warmer than this because they absorb and emit heat energy in all directions (including downwards), keeping Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere warm [Figure B1]. Without this greenhouse effect, life as we know it could not have evolved on our planet. Adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere makes it even more effective at preventing heat from escaping into space. When the energy leaving is less than the energy entering, Earth warms until a new balance is established.

Greenhouse gases emitted by human activities alter Earth’s energy balance and thus its climate. Humans also affect climate by changing the nature of the land surfaces (for example by clearing forests for farming) and through the emission of pollutants that affect the amount and type of particles in the atmosphere.

Scientists have determined that, when all human and natural factors are considered, Earth’s climate balance has been altered towards warming, with the biggest contributor being increases in CO 2 .

Figure b1. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, absorb heat energy and emit it in all directions (including downwards), keeping Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere warm. Adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere enhances the effect, making Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere even warmer. Image based on a figure from US EPA.

Human activities have added greenhouse gases to the atmosphere

The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution began. In the case of carbon dioxide, the average concentration measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has risen from 316 parts per million (ppm) in 1959 (the first full year of data available) to more than 411 ppm in 2019 [Figure B2]. The same rates of increase have since been recorded at numerous other stations worldwide. Since preindustrial times, the atmospheric concentration of CO 2  has increased by over 40%, methane has increased by more than 150%, and nitrous oxide has increased by roughly 20%. More than half of the increase in CO 2  has occurred since 1970. Increases in all three gases contribute to warming of Earth, with the increase in CO 2  playing the largest role. See page B3 to learn about the sources of human emitted greenhouse gases.  Learn about the sources of human emitted greenhouse gases.

Scientists have examined greenhouse gases in the context of the past. Analysis of air trapped inside ice that has been accumulating over time in Antarctica shows that the CO 2  concentration began to increase significantly in the 19th century [Figure B3], after staying in the range of 260 to 280 ppm for the previous 10,000 years. Ice core records extending back 800,000 years show that during that time, CO 2  concentrations remained within the range of 170 to 300 ppm throughout many “ice age” cycles -  learn about the ice ages  -  and no concentration above 300 ppm is seen in ice core records until the past 200 years.

Measurements of the forms (isotopes) of carbon in the modern atmosphere show a clear fingerprint of the addition of “old” carbon (depleted in natural radioactive  14 C) coming from the combustion of fossil fuels (as opposed to “newer” carbon coming from living systems). In addition, it is known that human activities (excluding land use changes) currently emit an estimated 10 billion tonnes of carbon each year, mostly by burning fossil fuels, which is more than enough to explain the observed increase in concentration. These and other lines of evidence point conclusively to the fact that the elevated CO 2  concentration in our atmosphere is the result of human activities. 

Fig b2. Measurements of atmospheric CO 2  since 1958 from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii (black) and from the South Pole (red) show a steady annual increase in atmospheric CO 2  concentration. The measurements are made at remote places like these because they are not greatly influenced by local processes, so therefore they are representative of the background atmosphere. The small up-and-down saw-tooth pattern reflects seasonal changes in the release and uptake of CO 2  by plants. Source: Scripps CO2 Program

Figure b3. CO 2  variations during the past 1,000 years, obtained from analysis of air trapped in an ice core extracted from Antarctica (red squares), show a sharp rise in atmospheric CO 2  starting in the late 19th century. Modern atmospheric measurements from Mauna Loa are superimposed in gray. Source: figure by Eric Wolff, data from Etheridge et al., 1996; MacFarling Meure et al., 2006; Scripps CO 2  Program. 

Climate records show a warming trend

Estimating global average surface air temperature increase requires careful analysis of millions of measurements from around the world, including from land stations, ships, and satellites. Despite the many complications of synthesising such data, multiple independent teams have concluded separately and unanimously that global average surface air temperature has risen by about 1 °C (1.8 °F) since 1900 [Figure B4]. Although the record shows several pauses and accelerations in the increasing trend, each of the last four decades has been warmer than any other decade in the instrumental record since 1850.

Going further back in time before accurate thermometers were widely available, temperatures can be reconstructed using climate-sensitive indicators “proxies” in materials such as tree rings, ice cores, and marine sediments. Comparisons of the thermometer record with these proxy measurements suggest that the time since the early 1980s has been the warmest 40-year period in at least eight centuries, and that global temperature is rising towards peak temperatures last seen 5,000 to 10,000 years ago in the warmest part of our current interglacial period.

Many other impacts associated with the warming trend have become evident in recent years. Arctic summer sea ice cover has shrunk dramatically. The heat content of the ocean has increased. Global average sea level has risen by approximately 16 cm (6 inches) since 1901, due both to the expansion of warmer ocean water and to the addition of melt waters from glaciers and ice sheets on land. Warming and precipitation changes are altering the geographical ranges of many plant and animal species and the timing of their life cycles. In addition to the effects on climate, some of the excess CO 2  in the atmosphere is being taken up by the ocean, changing its chemical composition (causing ocean acidification).

Figure b4. Earth’s global average surface temperature has risen, as shown in this plot of combined land and ocean measurements from 1850 to 2019 derived from three independent analyses of the available data sets. The top panel shows annual average values from the three analyses, and the bottom panel shows decadal average values, including the uncertainty range (grey bars) for the maroon (HadCRUT4) dataset. The temperature changes are relative to the global average surface temperature, averaged from 1961−1990. Source: Based on IPCC AR5, data from the HadCRUT4 dataset (black), NOAA Climate.gov; data from UK Met Office Hadley Centre (maroon), US National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies (red), and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Centers for Environmental Information (orange). 

Many complex processes shape our climate

Based just on the physics of the amount of energy that CO 2 absorbs and emits, a doubling of atmospheric CO 2 concentration from pre-industrial levels (up to about 560 ppm) would by itself cause a global average temperature increase of about 1 °C (1.8 °F). In the overall climate system, however, things are more complex; warming leads to further effects (feedbacks) that either amplify or diminish the initial warming.

The most important feedbacks involve various forms of water. A warmer atmosphere generally contains more water vapour. Water vapour is a potent greenhouse gas, thus causing more warming; its short lifetime in the atmosphere keeps its increase largely in step with warming. Thus, water vapour is treated as an amplifier, and not a driver, of climate change. Higher temperatures in the polar regions melt sea ice and reduce seasonal snow cover, exposing a darker ocean and land surface that can absorb more heat, causing further warming. Another important but uncertain feedback concerns changes in clouds. Warming and increases in water vapour together may cause cloud cover to increase or decrease which can either amplify or dampen temperature change depending on the changes in the horizontal extent, altitude, and properties of clouds. The latest assessment of the science indicates that the overall net global effect of cloud changes is likely to be to amplify warming.

The ocean moderates climate change. The ocean is a huge heat reservoir, but it is difficult to heat its full depth because warm water tends to stay near the surface. The rate at which heat is transferred to the deep ocean is therefore slow; it varies from year to year and from decade to decade, and it helps to determine the pace of warming at the surface. Observations of the sub-surface ocean are limited prior to about 1970, but since then, warming of the upper 700 m (2,300 feet) is readily apparent, and deeper warming is also clearly observed since about 1990.

Surface temperatures and rainfall in most regions vary greatly from the global average because of geographical location, in particular latitude and continental position. Both the average values of temperature, rainfall, and their extremes (which generally have the largest impacts on natural systems and human infrastructure), are also strongly affected by local patterns of winds.

Estimating the effects of feedback processes, the pace of the warming, and regional climate change requires the use of mathematical models of the atmosphere, ocean, land, and ice (the cryosphere) built upon established laws of physics and the latest understanding of the physical, chemical and biological processes affecting climate, and run on powerful computers. Models vary in their projections of how much additional warming to expect (depending on the type of model and on assumptions used in simulating certain climate processes, particularly cloud formation and ocean mixing), but all such models agree that the overall net effect of feedbacks is to amplify warming.

Human activities are changing the climate

Rigorous analysis of all data and lines of evidence shows that most of the observed global warming over the past 50 years or so cannot be explained by natural causes and instead requires a significant role for the influence of human activities.

In order to discern the human influence on climate, scientists must consider many natural variations that affect temperature, precipitation, and other aspects of climate from local to global scale, on timescales from days to decades and longer. One natural variation is the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), an irregular alternation between warming and cooling (lasting about two to seven years) in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that causes significant year-to-year regional and global shifts in temperature and rainfall patterns. Volcanic eruptions also alter climate, in part increasing the amount of small (aerosol) particles in the stratosphere that reflect or absorb sunlight, leading to a short-term surface cooling lasting typically about two to three years. Over hundreds of thousands of years, slow, recurring variations in Earth’s orbit around the Sun, which alter the distribution of solar energy received by Earth, have been enough to trigger the ice age cycles of the past 800,000 years.

Fingerprinting is a powerful way of studying the causes of climate change. Different influences on climate lead to different patterns seen in climate records. This becomes obvious when scientists probe beyond changes in the average temperature of the planet and look more closely at geographical and temporal patterns of climate change. For example, an increase in the Sun’s energy output will lead to a very different pattern of temperature change (across Earth’s surface and vertically in the atmosphere) compared to that induced by an increase in CO 2 concentration. Observed atmospheric temperature changes show a fingerprint much closer to that of a long-term CO 2 increase than to that of a fluctuating Sun alone. Scientists routinely test whether purely natural changes in the Sun, volcanic activity, or internal climate variability could plausibly explain the patterns of change they have observed in many different aspects of the climate system. These analyses have shown that the observed climate changes of the past several decades cannot be explained just by natural factors.

How will climate change in the future?

Scientists have made major advances in the observations, theory, and modelling of Earth’s climate system, and these advances have enabled them to project future climate change with increasing confidence. Nevertheless, several major issues make it impossible to give precise estimates of how global or regional temperature trends will evolve decade by decade into the future. Firstly, we cannot predict how much CO 2  human activities will emit, as this depends on factors such as how the global economy develops and how society’s production and consumption of energy changes in the coming decades. Secondly, with current understanding of the complexities of how climate feedbacks operate, there is a range of possible outcomes, even for a particular scenario of CO 2  emissions. Finally, over timescales of a decade or so, natural variability can modulate the effects of an underlying trend in temperature. Taken together, all model projections indicate that Earth will continue to warm considerably more over the next few decades to centuries. If there were no technological or policy changes to reduce emission trends from their current trajectory, then further globally-averaged warming of 2.6 to 4.8 °C (4.7 to 8.6 °F) in addition to that which has already occurred would be expected during the 21st century [Figure B5]. Projecting what those ranges will mean for the climate experienced at any particular location is a challenging scientific problem, but estimates are continuing to improve as regional and local-scale models advance.

Figure b5. The amount and rate of warming expected for the 21st century depends on the total amount of greenhouse gases that humankind emits. Models project the temperature increase for a business-as-usual emissions scenario (in red) and aggressive emission reductions, falling close to zero 50 years from now (in blue). Black is the modelled estimate of past warming. Each solid line represents the average of different model runs using the same emissions scenario, and the shaded areas provide a measure of the spread (one standard deviation) between the temperature changes projected by the different models. All data are relative to a reference period (set to zero) of 1986-2005. Source: Based on IPCC AR5

Climate change and biodiversity

Human activities are changing the climate. Science can help us understand what we are doing to habitats and the climate, but also find solutions.

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Researching Climate Change

Climate change research involves numerous disciplines of Earth system science as well as technology, engineering, and programming. Some major areas of climate change research include water, energy, ecosystems, air quality, solar physics, glaciology, human health, wildfires, and land use.

To have a complete picture of how the climate changes and how these changes affect the Earth, scientists make direct measurements of climate using weather instruments. They also look at proxy data that gives us clues about climate conditions from prehistoric times. And they use models of the Earth system to predict how the climate will change in the future.

Measurements of modern climate change

Because climate describes the weather conditions averaged over a long period of time (typically 30 years), much of the same information gathered about weather is used to research climate. Temperature is measured every day at thousands of locations around the world. This data is used to calculate average global temperatures . Changes in temperature patterns are a strong indicator of how much the climate is changing. Because we have thousands of temperature measurements, we know that record high temperatures are increasing across the globe, which is a sign that the climate is warming. Climatologists also look at changes in precipitation, the length and frequency of drought, as well as the number of days that rivers are at flood stage to understand how the climate is changing. Winds and other direct measures of climate contribute to climate change research as well.

This map shows the location of weather stations across the Earth. Continuous data from thousands of stations is important for climate change research.

Using proxy data to understand climate change in the past

Throughout Earth's 4.6 billion years, the climate has changed drastically, including periods that were much colder and much warmer than the climate today. But how do we know about the climate from prehistoric times ? Researchers decipher clues within the Earth to help reconstruct past environments based on our understanding of environments today. Proxy data can take the form of fossils, sediment layers, tree rings , coral, and ice cores. These proxies contain evidence of past environments. For example, marine fossils and ocean seafloor sediment preserved in rock layers from around 80 million years ago (the Cretaceous Period) indicate that North America was mostly covered in water. The high sea levels were due to a much warmer climate when all of the polar ice sheets had melted. We also find fossil vegetation and pollen records indicating that forests covered the polar regions during this same time period. The existence of multiple types of proxy data from different locations, often from overlapping time periods, strengthens our understanding of past climates.

Ice core drilling in the Arctic provides proxy evidence of paleoclimate conditions.

National Snow and Ice Data Center

Using models to project future climate change

Scientists use models of the Earth to figure out how climate will likely change in the future. These models, which are simulations of Earth, include equations that describe everything from how the winds blow to how sea ice reflects sunlight and how forests take up carbon dioxide. In-depth knowledge of how each part of the Earth functions is needed to write the equations that represent each part within the model. Understanding climate change in both the present and the past helps to create computational models that can predict how the climate system might change in the future.

While scientists work hard to ensure that climate models are as accurate as possible, the models are unable to predict exactly how the climate will change in the future because some things are unknown, namely how much humans will change (or not change) behaviors that contribute to climate warming. Scientists run the models with different scenarios to account for a range of possibilities. For example, running the models to show how the climate will respond if we reduce fossil fuel emissions by different amounts can help us prepare for the many impacts that a changing climate has on the Earth.

Climate models keep track of how parameters change from place to place using a grid pattern on the Earth’s surface. The environmental conditions within each hexagon-shaped area are programmed into the model. More detailed models have smaller hexagons.

Studying the impacts of climate change

From monitoring changes in tropical coral reefs to changes in glacial ice, keeping track of how climate change is affecting the planet is important for adapting to the future. Scientists who monitor the environment report stronger and more frequent storms, changing weather patterns, a longer growing season in some locations, and changes in the distribution of plants and migratory animals. Monitoring how climate change is affecting our world can help identify new threats to human health as the ranges of insect-borne diseases change and as drought-prone regions expand.

Many different areas of research, from meteorology to oceanography, epidemiology to agriculture, and even fields such as sociology and economics, have a role to play in terms of researching both how the climate is changing and the impacts of climate change.

The average length of the growing season in the lower 48 states has increased by almost two weeks since the late 1800s, a result of the changing climate. Researchers study how this change in the growing season impacts humans and the Earth. Credit: EPA

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• How Climate Works
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• Investigating Past Climates
• Climate Modeling
• Fast Computers and Complex Climate Models
• Visualizing Weather and Climate
• IPCC: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• From Dog Walking To Weather And Climate
• Satellite Signals from Space: Smart Science for Understanding Weather and Climate

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Science News

How did we get here the roots and impacts of the climate crisis.

People’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels and the cutting down of carbon-storing forests have transformed global climate.

For more than a century, researchers have honed their methods for measuring the impacts of human actions on Earth's atmosphere.

Sam Falconer

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By Alexandra Witze

March 10, 2022 at 11:00 am

Even in a world increasingly battered by weather extremes, the summer 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest stood out. For several days in late June, cities such as Vancouver, Portland and Seattle baked in record temperatures that killed hundreds of people. On June 29, Lytton, a village in British Columbia, set an all-time heat record for Canada, at 121° Fahrenheit (49.6° Celsius); the next day, the village was incinerated by a wildfire.

Within a week, an international group of scientists had analyzed this extreme heat and concluded it would have been virtually impossible without climate change caused by humans. The planet’s average surface temperature has risen by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial levels of 1850–1900. The reason: People are loading the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases produced during the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and gas, and from cutting down forests.

To celebrate our 100th anniversary, we’re highlighting some of the biggest advances in science over the last century. To see more from the series, visit Century of Science .

A little over 1 degree of warming may not sound like a lot. But it has already been enough to fundamentally transform how energy flows around the planet. The pace of change is accelerating, and the consequences are everywhere. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting, raising sea levels and flooding low-lying island nations and coastal cities. Drought is parching farmlands and the rivers that feed them. Wildfires are raging. Rains are becoming more intense, and weather patterns are shifting .

The roots of understanding this climate emergency trace back more than a century and a half. But it wasn’t until the 1950s that scientists began the detailed measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide that would prove how much carbon is pouring from human activities. Beginning in the 1960s, researchers started developing comprehensive computer models that now illuminate the severity of the changes ahead.

Today we know that climate change and its consequences are real, and we are responsible. The emissions that people have been putting into the air for centuries — the emissions that made long-distance travel, economic growth and our material lives possible — have put us squarely on a warming trajectory . Only drastic cuts in carbon emissions, backed by collective global will, can make a significant difference.

“What’s happening to the planet is not routine,” says Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. “We’re in a planetary crisis.”

Setting the stage

One day in the 1850s, Eunice Newton Foote, an amateur scientist and a women’s rights activist living in upstate New York, put two glass jars in sunlight. One contained regular air — a mix of nitrogen, oxygen and other gases including carbon dioxide — while the other contained just carbon dioxide. Both had thermometers in them. As the sun’s rays beat down, Foote observed that the jar of CO 2 alone heated up more quickly, and was slower to cool down, than the one containing plain air.

The results prompted Foote to muse on the relationship between CO 2 , the planet and heat. “An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature,” she wrote in an 1856 paper summarizing her findings .

Three years later, working independently and apparently unaware of Foote’s discovery, Irish physicist John Tyndall showed the same basic idea in more detail. With a set of pipes and devices to study the transmission of heat, he found that CO 2 gas, as well as water vapor, absorbed more heat than air alone. He argued that such gases would trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere, much as panes of glass trap heat in a greenhouse, and thus modulate climate.

Today Tyndall is widely credited with the discovery of how what we now call greenhouse gases heat the planet, earning him a prominent place in the history of climate science. Foote faded into relative obscurity — partly because of her gender, partly because her measurements were less sensitive. Yet their findings helped kick off broader scientific exploration of how the composition of gases in Earth’s atmosphere affects global temperatures.

Heat-trapping gases 

In 1859, John Tyndall used this apparatus to study how various gases trap heat. He sent infrared radiation through a tube filled with gas and measured the resulting temperature changes. Carbon dioxide and water vapor, he showed, absorb more heat than air does.

Carbon floods in

Humans began substantially affecting the atmosphere around the turn of the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution took off in Britain. Factories burned tons of coal; fueled by fossil fuels, the steam engine revolutionized transportation and other industries. Since then, fossil fuels including oil and natural gas have been harnessed to drive a global economy. All these activities belch gases into the air.

Yet Swedish physical chemist Svante Arrhenius wasn’t worried about the Industrial Revolution when he began thinking in the late 1800s about changes in atmospheric CO 2 levels. He was instead curious about ice ages — including whether a decrease in volcanic eruptions, which can put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, would lead to a future ice age. Bored and lonely in the wake of a divorce, Arrhenius set himself to months of laborious calculations involving moisture and heat transport in the atmosphere at different zones of latitude. In 1896, he reported that halving the amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere could indeed bring about an ice age — and that doubling CO 2 would raise global temperatures by around 5 to 6 degrees C.

It was a remarkably prescient finding for work that, out of necessity, had simplified Earth’s complex climate system down to just a few variables. But Arrhenius’ findings didn’t gain much traction with other scientists at the time. The climate system seemed too large, complex and inert to change in any meaningful way on a timescale that would be relevant to human society. Geologic evidence showed, for instance, that ice ages took thousands of years to start and end. What was there to worry about?

One researcher, though, thought the idea was worth pursuing. Guy Stewart Callendar, a British engineer and amateur meteorologist, had tallied weather records over time, obsessively enough to determine that average temperatures were increasing at 147 weather stations around the globe. In a 1938 paper in a Royal Meteorological Society journal, he linked this temperature rise to the burning of fossil fuels . Callendar estimated that fossil fuel burning had put around 150 billion metric tons of CO 2 into the atmosphere since the late 19th century.

Like many of his day, Callendar didn’t see global warming as a problem. Extra CO 2 would surely stimulate plants to grow and allow crops to be farmed in new regions. “In any case the return of the deadly glaciers should be delayed indefinitely,” he wrote. But his work revived discussions tracing back to Tyndall and Arrhenius about how the planetary system responds to changing levels of gases in the atmosphere. And it began steering the conversation toward how human activities might drive those changes.

When World War II broke out the following year, the global conflict redrew the landscape for scientific research. Hugely important wartime technologies, such as radar and the atomic bomb, set the stage for “big science” studies that brought nations together to tackle high-stakes questions of global reach. And that allowed modern climate science to emerge.

The Keeling curve

One major effort was the International Geophysical Year, or IGY, an 18-month push in 1957–1958 that involved a wide array of scientific field campaigns including exploration in the Arctic and Antarctica. Climate change wasn’t a high research priority during the IGY, but some scientists in California, led by Roger Revelle of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, used the funding influx to begin a project they’d long wanted to do. The goal was to measure CO 2 levels at different locations around the world, accurately and consistently.

The job fell to geochemist Charles David Keeling, who put ultraprecise CO 2 monitors in Antarctica and on the Hawaiian volcano of Mauna Loa. Funds soon ran out to maintain the Antarctic record, but the Mauna Loa measurements continued. Thus was born one of the most iconic datasets in all of science — the “Keeling curve,” which tracks the rise of atmospheric CO 2 .

When Keeling began his measurements in 1958, CO 2 made up 315 parts per million of the global atmosphere. Within just a few years it became clear that the number was increasing year by year. Because plants take up CO 2 as they grow in spring and summer and release it as they decompose in fall and winter, CO 2 concentrations rose and fell each year in a sawtooth pattern. But superimposed on that pattern was a steady march upward.

“The graph got flashed all over the place — it was just such a striking image,” says Ralph Keeling, who is Keeling’s son. Over the years, as the curve marched higher, “it had a really important role historically in waking people up to the problem of climate change.” The Keeling curve has been featured in countless earth science textbooks, congressional hearings and in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth .

Each year the curve keeps going up: In 2016, it passed 400 ppm of CO 2 in the atmosphere as measured during its typical annual minimum in September. Today it is at 413 ppm. (Before the Industrial Revolution, CO 2 levels in the atmosphere had been stable for centuries at around 280 ppm.)

Around the time that Keeling’s measurements were kicking off, Revelle also helped develop an important argument that the CO 2 from human activities was building up in Earth’s atmosphere. In 1957, he and Hans Suess, also at Scripps at the time, published a paper that traced the flow of radioactive carbon through the oceans and the atmosphere . They showed that the oceans were not capable of taking up as much CO 2 as previously thought; the implication was that much of the gas must be going into the atmosphere instead.

Steady rise 

Known as the Keeling curve, this chart shows the rise in CO 2 levels as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii due to human activities. The visible sawtooth pattern is due to seasonal plant growth: Plants take up CO 2   in the growing seasons, then release it as they decompose in fall and winter.

Monthly average CO 2 concentrations at Mauna Loa Observatory

“Human beings are now carrying out a large-scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future,” Revelle and Suess wrote in the paper. It’s one of the most famous sentences in earth science history.

Here was the insight underlying modern climate science: Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, and humans are causing the buildup. Revelle and Suess became the final piece in a puzzle dating back to Svante Arrhenius and John Tyndall. “I tell my students that to understand the basics of climate change, you need to have the cutting-edge science of the 1860s, the cutting-edge math of the 1890s and the cutting-edge chemistry of the 1950s,” says Joshua Howe, an environmental historian at Reed College in Portland, Ore.

Evidence piles up

Observational data collected throughout the second half of the 20th century helped researchers gradually build their understanding of how human activities were transforming the planet.

Ice cores pulled from ice sheets, such as that atop Greenland, offer some of the most telling insights for understanding past climate change. Each year, snow falls atop the ice and compresses into a fresh layer of ice representing climate conditions at the time it formed. The abundance of certain forms, or isotopes, of oxygen and hydrogen in the ice allows scientists to calculate the temperature at which it formed, and air bubbles trapped within the ice reveal how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were in the atmosphere at that time. So drilling down into an ice sheet is like reading the pages of a history book that go back in time the deeper you go.

Scientists began reading these pages in the early 1960s, using ice cores drilled at a U.S. military base in northwest Greenland . Contrary to expectations that past climates were stable, the cores hinted that abrupt climate shifts had happened over the last 100,000 years. By 1979, an international group of researchers was pulling another deep ice core from a second location in Greenland — and it, too, showed that abrupt climate change had occurred in the past. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a pair of European- and U.S.-led drilling projects retrieved even deeper cores from near the top of the ice sheet, pushing the record of past temperatures back a quarter of a million years.

Together with other sources of information, such as sediment cores drilled from the seafloor and molecules preserved in ancient rocks, the ice cores allowed scientists to reconstruct past temperature changes in extraordinary detail. Many of those changes happened alarmingly fast. For instance, the climate in Greenland warmed abruptly more than 20 times in the last 80,000 years , with the changes occurring in a matter of decades. More recently, a cold spell that set in around 13,000 years ago suddenly came to an end around 11,500 years ago — and temperatures in Greenland rose 10 degrees C in a decade.

Evidence for such dramatic climate shifts laid to rest any lingering ideas that global climate change would be slow and unlikely to occur on a timescale that humans should worry about. “It’s an important reminder of how ‘tippy’ things can be,” says Jessica Tierney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

More evidence of global change came from Earth-observing satellites, which brought a new planet-wide perspective on global warming beginning in the 1960s. From their viewpoint in the sky, satellites have measured the rise in global sea level — currently 3.4 millimeters per year and accelerating, as warming water expands and as ice sheets melt — as well as the rapid decline in ice left floating on the Arctic Ocean each summer at the end of the melt season. Gravity-sensing satellites have “weighed” the Antarctic and Greenlandic ice sheets from above since 2002, reporting that more than 400 billion metric tons of ice are lost each year.

Temperature observations taken at weather stations around the world also confirm that we are living in the hottest years on record. The 10 warmest years since record keeping began in 1880 have all occurred since 2005 . And nine of those 10 have come since 2010.

Worrisome predictions

By the 1960s, there was no denying that the planet was warming. But understanding the consequences of those changes — including the threat to human health and well-being — would require more than observational data. Looking to the future depended on computer simulations: complex calculations of how energy flows through the planetary system.

A first step in building such climate models was to connect everyday observations of weather to the concept of forecasting future climate. During World War I, British mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson imagined tens of thousands of meteorologists, each calculating conditions for a small part of the atmosphere but collectively piecing together a global forecast.

But it wasn’t until after World War II that computational power turned Richardson’s dream into reality. In the wake of the Allied victory, which relied on accurate weather forecasts for everything from planning D-Day to figuring out when and where to drop the atomic bombs, leading U.S. mathematicians acquired funding from the federal government to improve predictions. In 1950, a team led by Jule Charney, a meteorologist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., used the ENIAC, the first U.S. programmable, electronic computer, to produce the first computer-driven regional weather forecast . The forecasting was slow and rudimentary, but it built on Richardson’s ideas of dividing the atmosphere into squares, or cells, and computing the weather for each of those. The work set the stage for decades of climate modeling to follow.

By 1956, Norman Phillips, a member of Charney’s team, had produced the world’s first general circulation model, which captured how energy flows between the oceans, atmosphere and land. The field of climate modeling was born.

The work was basic at first because early computers simply didn’t have much computational power to simulate all aspects of the planetary system.

An important breakthrough came in 1967, when meteorologists Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald — both at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, a lab born from Charney’s group — published a paper in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences that modeled connections between Earth’s surface and atmosphere and calculated how changes in CO 2 would affect the planet’s temperature. Manabe and Wetherald were the first to build a computer model that captured the relevant processes that drive climate , and to accurately simulate how the Earth responds to those processes.

The rise of climate modeling allowed scientists to more accurately envision the impacts of global warming. In 1979, Charney and other experts met in Woods Hole, Mass., to try to put together a scientific consensus on what increasing levels of CO 2 would mean for the planet. The resulting “Charney report” concluded that rising CO 2 in the atmosphere would lead to additional and significant climate change.

In the decades since, climate modeling has gotten increasingly sophisticated . And as climate science firmed up, climate change became a political issue.

The hockey stick 

This famous graph, produced by scientist Michael Mann and colleagues, and then reproduced in a 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, dramatically captures temperature change over time. Climate change skeptics made it the center of an all-out attack on climate science.

The rising public awareness of climate change, and battles over what to do about it, emerged alongside awareness of other environmental issues in the 1960s and ’70s. Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring , which condemned the pesticide DDT for its ecological impacts, catalyzed environmental activism in the United States and led to the first Earth Day in 1970.

In 1974, scientists discovered another major global environmental threat — the Antarctic ozone hole, which had some important parallels to and differences from the climate change story. Chemists Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland, of the University of California, Irvine, reported that chlorofluorocarbon chemicals, used in products such as spray cans and refrigerants, caused a chain of reactions that gnawed away at the atmosphere’s protective ozone layer . The resulting ozone hole, which forms over Antarctica every spring, allows more ultraviolet radiation from the sun to make it through Earth’s atmosphere and reach the surface, where it can cause skin cancer and eye damage.

Governments worked under the auspices of the United Nations to craft the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which strictly limited the manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons . In the years following, the ozone hole began to heal. But fighting climate change is proving to be far more challenging. Transforming entire energy sectors to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions is much more difficult than replacing a set of industrial chemicals.

In 1980, though, researchers took an important step toward banding together to synthesize the scientific understanding of climate change and bring it to the attention of international policy makers. It started at a small scientific conference in Villach, Austria, on the seriousness of climate change. On the train ride home from the meeting, Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin talked with other participants about how a broader, deeper and more international analysis was needed. In 1988, a United Nations body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, was born. Bolin was its first chairperson.

The IPCC became a highly influential and unique body. It performs no original scientific research; instead, it synthesizes and summarizes the vast literature of climate science for policy makers to consider — primarily through massive reports issued every couple of years. The first IPCC report, in 1990 , predicted that the planet’s global mean temperature would rise more quickly in the following century than at any point in the last 10,000 years, due to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

IPCC reports have played a key role in providing scientific information for nations discussing how to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations. This process started with the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 , which resulted in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Annual U.N. meetings to tackle climate change led to the first international commitments to reduce emissions, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 . Under it, developed countries committed to reduce emissions of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases. By 2007, the IPCC declared the reality of climate warming is “unequivocal.” The group received the Nobel Peace Prize that year, along with Al Gore, for their work on climate change.

The IPCC process ensured that policy makers had the best science at hand when they came to the table to discuss cutting emissions. Of course, nations did not have to abide by that science — and they often didn’t. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, international climate meetings discussed less hard-core science and more issues of equity. Countries such as China and India pointed out that they needed energy to develop their economies and that nations responsible for the bulk of emissions through history, such as the United States, needed to lead the way in cutting greenhouse gases.

Meanwhile, residents of some of the most vulnerable nations, such as low-lying islands that are threatened by sea level rise, gained visibility and clout at international negotiating forums. “The issues around equity have always been very uniquely challenging in this collective action problem,” says Rachel Cleetus, a climate policy expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass.

By 2015, the world’s nations had made some progress on the emissions cuts laid out in the Kyoto Protocol, but it was still not enough to achieve substantial global reductions. That year, a key U.N. climate conference in Paris produced an international agreement to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees C, and preferably 1.5 degrees C , above preindustrial levels.

Every country has its own approach to the challenge of addressing climate change. In the United States, which gets approximately 80 percent of its energy from fossil fuels, sophisticated efforts to downplay and critique the science led to major delays in climate action. For decades, U.S. fossil fuel companies such as ExxonMobil worked to influence politicians to take as little action on emissions reductions as possible.

Biggest footprint 

These 20 nations have emitted the largest cumulative amounts of carbon dioxide since 1850. Emissions are shown in billions of metric tons and are broken down into subtotals from fossil fuel use and cement manufacturing (blue) and land use and forestry (green).

Total carbon dioxide emissions by country, 1850–2021 

Such tactics undoubtedly succeeded in feeding politicians’ delay on climate action in the United States, most of it from Republicans. President George W. Bush withdrew the country from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 ; Donald Trump similarly rejected the Paris accord in 2017 . As late as 2015, the chair of the Senate’s environment committee, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, brought a snowball into Congress on a cold winter’s day to argue that human-caused global warming is a “hoax.”

In Australia, a similar mix of right-wing denialism and fossil fuel interests has kept climate change commitments in flux, as prime ministers are voted in and out over fierce debates about how the nation should act on climate.

Yet other nations have moved forward. Some European countries such as Germany aggressively pursued renewable energies, including wind and solar, while activists such as Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg — the vanguard of a youth-action movement — pressured their governments for more.

In recent years, the developing economies of China and India have taken center stage in discussions about climate action. China, which is now the world’s largest carbon emitter, declared several moderate steps in 2021 to reduce emissions, including that it would stop building coal-burning power plants overseas. India announced it would aim for net-zero emissions by 2070, the first time it has set a date for this goal.

Yet such pledges continue to be criticized. At the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, India was globally criticized for not committing to a complete phaseout of coal — although the two top emitters, China and the United States, have not themselves committed to phasing out coal. “There is no equity in this,” says Aayushi Awasthy, an energy economist at the University of East Anglia in England.

Past and future 

Various scenarios for how greenhouse gas emissions might change going forward help scientists predict future climate change. This graph shows the simulated historical temperature trend along with future projections of rising temperatures based on five scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Temperature change is the difference from the 1850–1900 average.

Historical and projected global temperature change

Facing the future

In many cases, changes are coming faster than scientists had envisioned a few decades ago. The oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb CO 2 , harming tiny marine organisms that build protective calcium carbonate shells and are the base of the marine food web. Warmer waters are bleaching coral reefs. Higher temperatures are driving animal and plant species into areas in which they previously did not live, increasing the risk of extinction for many.

No place on the planet is unaffected. In many areas, higher temperatures have led to major droughts, which dry out vegetation and provide additional fuel for wildfires such as those that have devastated Australia , the Mediterranean and western North America in recent years.

Then there’s the Arctic, where temperatures are rising at more than twice the global average and communities are at the forefront of change. Permafrost is thawing, destabilizing buildings, pipelines and roads. Caribou and reindeer herders worry about the increased risk of parasites for the health of their animals. With less sea ice available to buffer the coast from storm erosion, the Inupiat village of Shishmaref, Alaska, risks crumbling into the sea . It will need to move from its sand-barrier island to the mainland.

“We know these changes are happening and that the Titanic is sinking,” says Louise Farquharson, a geomorphologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who monitors permafrost and coastal change around Alaska. All around the planet, those who depend on intact ecosystems for their survival face the greatest threat from climate change. And those with the least resources to adapt to climate change are the ones who feel it first.

“We are going to warm,” says Claudia Tebaldi, a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. “There is no question about it. The only thing that we can hope to do is to warm a little more slowly.”

That’s one reason why the IPCC report released in 2021 focuses on anticipated levels of global warming . There is a big difference between the planet warming 1.5 degrees versus 2 degrees or 2.5 degrees. Each fraction of a degree of warming increases the risk of extreme events such as heat waves and heavy rains, leading to greater global devastation.

The future rests on how much nations are willing to commit to cutting emissions and whether they will stick to those commitments. It’s a geopolitical balancing act the likes of which the world has never seen.

Science can and must play a role going forward. Improved climate models will illuminate what changes are expected at the regional scale, helping officials prepare. Governments and industry have crucial parts to play as well. They can invest in technologies, such as carbon sequestration, to help decarbonize the economy and shift society toward more renewable sources of energy.

Huge questions remain. Do voters have the will to demand significant energy transitions from their governments? How can business and military leaders play a bigger role in driving climate action? What should be the role of low-carbon energy sources that come with downsides, such as nuclear energy? How can developing nations achieve a better standard of living for their people while not becoming big greenhouse gas emitters? How can we keep the most vulnerable from being disproportionately harmed during extreme events, and incorporate environmental and social justice into our future?

These questions become more pressing each year, as carbon dioxideaccumulates in our atmosphere. The planet is now at higher levels of CO 2 than at any time in the last 3 million years.

At the U.N. climate meeting in Glasgow in 2021, diplomats from around the world agreed to work more urgently to shift away from using fossil fuels. They did not, however, adopt targets strict enough to keep the world below a warming of 1.5 degrees.

It’s been well over a century since chemist Svante Arrhenius recognized the consequences of putting extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Yet the world has not pulled together to avoid the most dangerous consequences of climate change.

Time is running out.

More Stories from Science News on Climate

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Climate change research.

Science in Space: April 2024

Everyone on Earth is touched by the effects of climate change, such as hotter temperatures, shifts in rain patterns, and sea level rise. Collecting climate data helps communities better plan for these changes and build more resilience to them.

The International Space Station, one of dozens of NASA missions contributing to this effort, has multiple instruments collecting various types of climate-related data. Because the station’s orbit passes over 90 percent of Earth’s population and circles the planet 16 times each day, these instruments have views of multiple locations at different times of day and night. The data inform climate decisions and help scientists understand and solve the challenges created by climate change.

While crew members have little involvement in the ongoing operation of these instruments, they do play a critical role in unpacking hardware when it arrives at the space station and in assembling and installing the instruments via spacewalks or using the station’s robotic arm.

One investigation on the orbiting lab that contributes to efforts to monitor and address climate change is ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station ( ECOSTRESS ). It provides thermal infrared measurements of Earth’s surface that help answer questions about water stress in plants and how specific regions respond to climate change. Research confirmed the accuracy of ECOSTRESS surface estimates 1 and found that the process of photosynthesis in plants begins to fail at 46.7 degrees C (114 degrees F). 2 Average temperatures have increased 0.5 degrees C per decade in some tropical regions, and temperature extremes are becoming more pronounced. Rainforests are a primary producer of oxygen and, without sufficient mitigation of the effects of climate change, leaf temperatures in these tropical forests soon could approach this failure threshold.

The Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor ( TSIS ) measures total solar irradiance (TSI) and solar spectral irradiance (SSI). TSI is the total solar energy input to Earth and SSI measures the Sun’s energy in individual wavelengths. Energy from the Sun drives atmospheric and oceanic circulations on Earth, and knowing its magnitude and variability is essential to understanding Earth’s climate. Researchers verified the instrument’s performance and showed that it made more accurate measurements than previous instruments. 3,4 TSIS maintains a continuity of nearly 40 years of data on solar irradiance from space-based observations.

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The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation ( GEDI ) observes global forests and topography using light detection and ranging (lidar). These observations could provide insight into important carbon and water cycling processes, biodiversity, and habitat. One study used GEDI data to estimate pan-tropical and temperate biomass densities at the national level for every country observed and the sub-national level for the United States. 5

Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation ( EMIT ) determines the type and distribution of minerals in the dust of Earth’s arid regions using an imaging spectrometer. Mineral dust affects local warming and cooling, air quality, rate of snow melt, and ocean plankton growth. Researchers demonstrated that data from EMIT also can be used to identify and monitor specific sources of methane and carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide and methane are the primary human-caused drivers of climate change. Increasing emissions in areas with poor reporting requirements create significant uncertainty in the global carbon budget. 6 The high spatial resolution of EMIT data could allow precise monitoring even of sources that are close together.

The station’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 ( OCO-3 ) collects data on global carbon dioxide during sunlit hours, mapping emissions of targeted local hotspots. This type of satellite-based remote sensing helps assess and verify emission reductions included in national and global plans and agreements. Monitoring by OCO-3 and the Italian Space Agency’s PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa (PRISMA) satellite of 30 coal-fired power plants between 2021 and 2022 showed agreement with on-site observations. 7 This result suggests that under the right conditions, satellites can provide reliable estimates of emissions from discreet sources. Combustion for power and other industrial uses account for an estimated 59% of global human-caused carbon dioxide emissions.

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III-ISS ( SAGE III-ISS ) measures ozone and other gases and tiny particles in the atmosphere, called aerosols, that together act as Earth’s sunscreen. The instrument can distinguish between clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere. A study showed that aerosols dominate Earth’s tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, a transition region between the two atmospheric levels. Continuous monitoring and identification of these layers of the atmosphere helps quantify their effect on Earth’s climate. 8

An early remote sensing system, ISS SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System ( ISERV ), captured images of Earth at pre-programmed intervals through a window in the space station with high-quality optics, known as the Window Observational Research Facility ( WORF ). Researchers reported that this type of Earth observation is critical for applications such as mapping land use and assessing carbon biomass and ocean health. 9

John Love, ISS Research Planning Integration Scientist Expedition 71

Search this database of scientific experiments to learn more about those mentioned above.

1 Weidberg N, Lopez Chiquillo L, Roman S, Roman M, Vazquez E, et al. Assessing high resolution thermal monitoring of complex intertidal environments from space: The case of ECOSTRESS at Rias Baixas, NW Iberia. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment. 2023 November; 32101055. DOI: 10.1016/j.rsase.2023.101055.

2 Doughty CE, Keany JM, Wiebe BC, Rey-Sanchez C, Carter KR, et al. Tropical forests are approaching critical temperature thresholds. Nature. 2023 August 23; 621105-111. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06391-z.

3 Richard EC, Harber D, Coddington OM, Drake G, Rutkowski J, et al. SI-traceable spectral irradiance radiometric characterization and absolute calibration of the TSIS-1 Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SIM). Remote Sensing. 2020 January; 12(11): 1818. DOI:  10.3390/rs12111818.

4 Coddington OM, Richard EC, Harber D, Pilewskie P, Chance K, et al. The TSIS-1 hybrid solar reference spectrum. Geophysical Research Letters. 2021 April 26; 48(12): e2020GL091709. DOI:  10.1029/2020GL091709

5 Dubayah R, Armston J, Healey S, Bruening JM, Patterson PL, et al. GEDI launches a new era of biomass inference from space. Environmental Research Letters. 2022 August; 17(9): 095001. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac8694.

6 Thorpe A, Green RD, Thompson DR, Brodrick PG, Chapman DK, et al. Attribution of individual methane and carbon dioxide emission sources using EMIT observations from space. Science Advances. 2023 November 17; 9(46): eadh2391. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh2391.

7 Cusworth DH, Thorpe A, Miller CE, Ayasse AK, Jiorle R, et al. Two years of satellite-based carbon dioxide emission quantification at the world’s largest coal-fired power plants. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 2023 November 24; 23(22): 14577-14591. DOI: 10.5194/acp-23-14577-2023.

8 Bhatta S, Pandit AK, Loughman R, Vernier J. Three-wavelength approach for aerosol-cloud discrimination in the SAGE III/ISS aerosol extinction dataset. Applied Optics. 2023 May; 62(13): 3454-3466. DOI: 10.1364/AO.485466 .

9 Kansakar P, Hossain F. A review of applications of satellite earth observation data for global societal benefit and stewardship of planet earth. Space Policy. 2016 May; 3646-54.

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NEEF understands that:

Science is a process. The scientific method – forming hypotheses, testing them through observations and experiments, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions – allows scientists to better understand the natural world. Scientists rely on each other to question, test, and improve their work, and scientific hypotheses must stand up to rigorous review and replication to be considered proven. Communicating Climate Change: An Essential Resource for Journalists, Scientists and Educators sums it up:

… a theory represents a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been confirmed through repeated experiments. After sufficient testing, hypotheses rise to the status of theories, which have come to be accepted by the scientific community. Theories about gravity, evolution, and relativity underpin our understanding of the universe, and help us to understand new phenomena. i

Uncertainty is part of science. Scientists rely on each other to question and improve their work through peer review , further investigation, and replication. Asking questions and challenging conclusions is a critical part of the scientific process. As the American Meteorological Society explains, “because of the skeptical nature of scientists, new ideas are accepted very slowly and only after a great deal of scrutiny.  In fact, what authority science achieves is based on the openness by which scientific results are presented for review, evaluation, and additional testing.” ii

Scientific consensus is based on the evidence. A scientific consensus emerges over time, as the evidence becomes consistent and increasingly compelling. Climate Science Investigations (CSI), an interactive series of modules and teaching resources developed by Florida Atlantic University and University of Miami, explains:

When the work being reviewed can be repeated and confirmed, then the scientific community is likely to reach consensus (agreement) and accept the findings and explanations as valid. If, on the other hand, scientists cannot confirm or validate the research, then those explanations or ideas are likely to be challenged, or even rejected. Challenges may also include proposing alternative hypotheses or explanations. The author–scientist may then test these new alternative hypotheses, or he or she may supply additional evidence to support his or her claims. The final goal of the process, however, is not to disagree but to revise the explanation so that the scientific community can reach a shared agreement (consensus).

Once papers are presented at conferences or are published, the wider scientific community has an opportunity to review and challenge the research. The scientific ideas are evaluated against alternative explanations and the evidence is compared with competing evidence collected by other scientists. Acceptance of an explanation ultimately depends on which explanation describes the most observations in the simplest, most logical manner. iii

Common Questions about Climate Change

Based on the evidence, more than 97% of climate scientists have concluded human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change is happening. iv

A scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is happening does not mean that there are no uncertainties about climate change and its impacts. The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) explains that “spirited debate around remaining uncertainties in climate science is a healthy indicator that the scientific method is alive and well.” However, UCAR further notes that “the fundamental elements of climate change are not in dispute” – these fundamentals include how greenhouse gases trap heat, how much carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) humans have added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, and how climate change is presently affecting plants, animals, ecosystems and people. v

Statements from leading scientific societies, academies, government agencies, and intergovernmental bodies reflect the scientific consensus on climate change. These statements include:

• US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP, 13 U.S. Government Departments and Agencies) ( 2014 )

“Evidence for climate change abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. Scientists and engineers from around the world have meticulously collected this evidence, using satellites and networks of weather balloons, thermometers, buoys, and other observing systems. Evidence of climate change is also visible in the observed and measured changes in location and behavior of species and functioning of ecosystems. Taken together, this evidence tells an unambiguous story: the planet is warming, and over the last half century, this warming has been driven primarily by human activity.”

“Multiple lines of independent evidence confirm that human activities are the primary cause of global warming of the past 50 years.”

• American Geophysical Union (AGU) (Adopted 2003, revised and reaffirmed 2007, 2012, 2013 )

“Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years. Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes.”

• American Medical Association (AMA) ( 2013 )

“Our AMA supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant.”

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – Fifth Assessment Report (IR5) ( 2013 )

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.”

“Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system.”

• American Meteorological Society (AMS) ( 2012 )

“It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide.”

• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) ( 2006 )

“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.”

• US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) ( 2005 )

“The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

At NEEF, we hold ourselves accountable for providing objective, science-based information. We accept the scientific consensus that based on the evidence, more than 97% of climate scientists have concluded human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change is happening. Repeated analyses have shown that an overwhelming majority of scientists in the field have concluded that Earth’s atmosphere has warmed markedly over the past six decades and that human activities are responsible for a substantial part of that warming.

NEEF is not an advocacy organization. We do not endorse or advocate any particular policy or legislation related to climate change.

• Learn . Look at the evidence and turn to resources you trust to learn more about climate change science and the impacts of climate change where you live. You may find the list of resources below helpful in getting started.
• Look for opportunities to contribute to scientific research that will help us document and learn more about the impacts of climate change on our communities and our environment. Citizen science programs are a good place to start.
• Calculate your carbon footprint. EPA’s Household Carbon Footprint Calculator will give you a “ballpark” estimate of your greenhouse gas emissions and help you explore how certain actions can help you reduce your emissions. Answering a few questions in the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions’ What’s My Carbon Footprint? tool will also provide information and tips.

The following resources provide science-based information about climate change and its impacts.

Videos and Interactive Websites

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Climate Change & Global Warming articles, videos and interactives from NOAA’s Climate.gov

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• Highlights of Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment , U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2014.
• Climate Change Indicators in the United States , U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2014.
• Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers , Working Group I Contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013, World Meteorological Organization and United Nations Environment Programme.
• The Thinking Person’s Guide to Climate Change , Robert Henson, 2014, American Meteorological Society.
• The Discovery of Global Warming , Spencer R. Weart, 2008, Harvard University Press.
• Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change , undated, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
• Understanding and Responding to Climate Change: Highlights of National Academies Reports , 2008, The National Academies.
• The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change , Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein, Island Press, 2014.
• The Scientific Evidence, with a 95% Level of Certainty, Points to Human Causes for Observed Warming over Past Half Century
• Scientific Evidence Shows Solar Energy Not a Key Factor in Increased Warming over Recent Decades
• The Principal Greenhouse Gases and Their Sources
• The 1998-2013 Warming Hiatus in Context
• Understanding the Climate Change/Extreme Weather Relationship
• Talking Climate Talk: Tools for WCMs and Broadcast Meteorologists
• Extreme Weather 101: Preparing for the Impacts of Extreme Weather & Climate Change
• Dealing with Drought: Science, Impacts and Strategies to Save Water
• COMET Climate Change Courses

i Ward, Morris A. 2008. Communicating on Climate Change: An Essential Resource for Journalists, Scientists, and Educators. Narragansett, RI: Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting, University of Rhode Island.

 ii American Meteorological Society. 2013. "A Policy Statement of the American Meteorological Society: Climate Science is Core to Science Education." Adopted by the AMS Executive Committee, 23 May 2013.

ii Climate Science Investigations. 2014. "Scientific Consensus and Certainty: How Do Scientists Collaborate and Reach Consensus?" Accessed August 18. http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/introduction/scientific-inquiry/how-do-scie…

iv Supporting Citations:

• Anderegg, W.R.L., Prall, J.W., Harold, J. & Schneider, S.H. 2010. Expert credibility in climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(27), 12107-12109.
• Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S.A., Richardson, M. Winkler, B., Painting, R., … Skuce, A. 2013. Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters 8(2), 024024.
• Doran, P.T., & Zimmerman, M.K. 2009. Examining the scientific consensus on climate change. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union 90(3), 22.

v University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. 2014. "Global Warming & Climate Change – Frequently Asked Questions." Accessed January 3. https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq#t2509n1355 .

Today, there is no real disagreement among climate experts that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming. NOAA Climate.gov cartoon by Emily Greenhalgh. 

Consensus of experts

The United States' foremost scientific agencies and organizations have recognized global warming as a human-caused problem that should be addressed. The U.S. Global Change Research Program has published a series of scientific reports documenting the causes and impacts of global climate change. NOAA , NASA , the National Science Foundation , the National Research Council , and the Environmental Protection Agency have all published reports and fact sheets stating that Earth is warming mainly due to the increase in human-produced heat-trapping gases.

On their climate home page , the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicines says, "Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions," and that "Climate change is increasingly affecting people’s lives." 

Soot from fires and air pollution contributes to global warming, and its impacts may be especially strong in the Arctic, where it darkens the snow and ice—as shown in this photo—and accelerates melting. Despite some uncertainty about just how much influence soot and other aerosol particles have played in climate change in the past century, there's little debate among climate scientists that the primary driver of recent global warming is carbon dioxide emissions. Photo from NOAA Ocean Today .

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) issued this position statement : "Scientific evidence indicates that the leading cause of climate change in the most recent half century is the anthropogenic increase in the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, tropospheric ozone, and nitrous oxide." (Adopted April 15, 2019)

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) issued this position statement : "Human activities are changing Earth's climate, causing increasingly disruptive societal and ecological impacts. Such impacts are creating hardships and suffering now, and they will continue to do so into the future—in ways expected as well as potentially unforeseen. To limit these impacts, the world's nations have agreed to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels. To achieve this goal, global society must promptly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions." (Reaffirmed in November 2019)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) What We Know site states: "Based on the evidence, about 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening."

Consensus of evidence

These scientific organizations have not issued statements in a void; they echo the findings of individual papers published in refereed scientific journals. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) maintains a database of over 8,500 peer-reviewed science journals, and multiple studies of this database show evidence of overwhelming agreement among climate scientists. In 2004, science historian Naomi Oreskes published the results of her examination of the ISI database in the journal Science . She reviewed 928 abstracts published between 1993 and 2003 related to human activities warming the Earth's surface, and stated, "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

This finding hasn't changed with time. In 2016, a review paper summarized the results of several independent studies on peer-reviewed research related to climate. The authors found results consistent with a 97-percent consensus that human activity is causing climate change. A 2021 paper found a greater than 99-percent consensus.

Probably the most definitive assessments of global climate science come from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Founded by the United Nations in 1988, the IPCC releases periodic reports, and each major release includes three volumes: one on the science, one on impacts, and one on mitigation. Each volume is authored by a separate team of experts, who reviews, evaluates, and summarizes relevant research published since the prior report. Each IPCC report undergoes several iterations of expert and government review. The 2021 IPCC report, for instance, received and responded to more than 78,000 expert and government review comments.

Every five years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change convenes hundreds of international scientists and government representatives to review and assess peer-reviewed research on climate science. In each cycle, the panel publishes three key reports: one on the basic science , one on impacts , and one on mitigation .

The IPCC does not involve just a few scientists, or even just dozens of scientists. An IPCC press release explains: "Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, IPCC scientists volunteer their time to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks."

Governments and climate experts across the globe nominate scientists for IPCC authorship, and the IPCC works to find a mix of authors, from developed and developing countries, among men and women, and among authors who are experienced with the IPCC and new to the process. Published in 2021, the Sixth Assessment Report was assembled by 751 experts from more than 60 countries (31 coordinating authors, 167 lead authors, 36 review editors, and 517 contributing authors). Collectively, the authors cited more than 14,000 scientific papers. In other words, the IPCC reports themselves are a comprehensive, consensus statement on the state climate science.

In the headline statements from the Sixth Assessment report's Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC concluded:

It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole – and the present state of many aspects of the climate system – are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years. Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since [our last report].

Cook, J., D. Nuccitelli, S.A. Green, M. Richardson, B. Winkler, R. Painting, R. Way, P. Jacobs, and A. Skuce (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters , 8, 024024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 .

Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P.T., Anderegg, W.R.L., Verheggen, B., Mailbach, E.W., Carlton, J.S., Lewandowsky, S., Skuce, A.G., Green, S.A., Nuccitelli, D., Jacobs, P., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., Rice, K. (2016). Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters , 11, 048002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 .

Doran, P., and M.K. Zimmerman (2009): Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Eos , 90(3), 22–23.

IPCC. (2013). Factsheet: How does the IPCC select its authors? Accessed January 3, 2020.

IPCC. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva Switzerland. Accessed January 22, 2020.

IPCC. (2021). Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3−32, doi:10.1017/9781009157896.001.

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. (2021). https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

Lynas, M., Houlton, B.Z., Perry, S. (2021). Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters , 16, 114005. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 .

Oreskes, N. (2004). The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Science , 306, 1686. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1103618 .

Oreskes, N. (2018). The scientific consensus on climate change: How do we know we're not wrong? Climate Modelling , pp. 31–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65058-6_2 .

Sherwood, S. (2011, May 10). Trust us, we're climate scientists: The case for the IPCC . The Conversation .

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News & features, talking with ipcc vice-chair ko barrett: on climate change and consensus building, what's it like to be an author for the ipcc report, 2016 arctic heat would have been virtually impossible without global warming, national climate assessment map shows uneven impact of future global warming on u.s. energy spending, maps & data, climate forcing, future climate, climate models, teaching climate, toolbox for teaching climate & energy, the smap/globe partnership: citizen scientists measure soil moisture, climate youth engagement, climate resilience toolkit, climate change 2007: the physical science basis, the effects of climate change on agriculture, land resources, water resources, and biodiversity in the united states, advancing the science of climate change.

Climate Change: Evidence and Causes: Update 2020 (2020)

Chapter: conclusion, c onclusion.

This document explains that there are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. It discusses the evidence that the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere have increased and are still increasing rapidly, that climate change is occurring, and that most of the recent change is almost certainly due to emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activities. Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change, but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.

Citizens and governments can choose among several options (or a mixture of those options) in response to this information: they can change their pattern of energy production and usage in order to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and hence the magnitude of climate changes; they can wait for changes to occur and accept the losses, damage, and suffering that arise; they can adapt to actual and expected changes as much as possible; or they can seek as yet unproven “geoengineering” solutions to counteract some of the climate changes that would otherwise occur. Each of these options has risks, attractions and costs, and what is actually done may be a mixture of these different options. Different nations and communities will vary in their vulnerability and their capacity to adapt. There is an important debate to be had about choices among these options, to decide what is best for each group or nation, and most importantly for the global population as a whole. The options have to be discussed at a global scale because in many cases those communities that are most vulnerable control few of the emissions, either past or future. Our description of the science of climate change, with both its facts and its uncertainties, is offered as a basis to inform that policy debate.

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following individuals served as the primary writing team for the 2014 and 2020 editions of this document:

• Eric Wolff FRS, (UK lead), University of Cambridge
• Inez Fung (NAS, US lead), University of California, Berkeley
• Brian Hoskins FRS, Grantham Institute for Climate Change
• John F.B. Mitchell FRS, UK Met Office
• Tim Palmer FRS, University of Oxford
• Benjamin Santer (NAS), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• John Shepherd FRS, University of Southampton
• Keith Shine FRS, University of Reading.
• Susan Solomon (NAS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Walsh, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
• Don Wuebbles, University of Illinois

Staff support for the 2020 revision was provided by Richard Walker, Amanda Purcell, Nancy Huddleston, and Michael Hudson. We offer special thanks to Rebecca Lindsey and NOAA Climate.gov for providing data and figure updates.

The following individuals served as reviewers of the 2014 document in accordance with procedures approved by the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences:

• Richard Alley (NAS), Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University
• Alec Broers FRS, Former President of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Harry Elderfield FRS, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
• Joanna Haigh FRS, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London
• Isaac Held (NAS), NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
• John Kutzbach (NAS), Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin
• Jerry Meehl, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Pendry FRS, Imperial College London
• John Pyle FRS, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
• Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Emily Shuckburgh, British Antarctic Survey
• Gabrielle Walker, Journalist
• Andrew Watson FRS, University of East Anglia

The Support for the 2014 Edition was provided by NAS Endowment Funds. We offer sincere thanks to the Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Endowment for NAS Missions for supporting the production of this 2020 Edition.

F OR FURTHER READING

For more detailed discussion of the topics addressed in this document (including references to the underlying original research), see:

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2019: Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [ https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc ]
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), 2019: Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25259 ]
• Royal Society, 2018: Greenhouse gas removal [ https://raeng.org.uk/greenhousegasremoval ]
• U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), 2018: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States [ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov ]
• IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C [ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15 ]
• USGCRP, 2017: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume I: Climate Science Special Reports [ https://science2017.globalchange.gov ]
• NASEM, 2016: Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852 ]
• IPCC, 2013: Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Working Group 1. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis [ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1 ]
• NRC, 2013: Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18373 ]
• NRC, 2011: Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12877 ]
• Royal Society 2010: Climate Change: A Summary of the Science [ https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science ]
• NRC, 2010: America’s Climate Choices: Advancing the Science of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12782 ]

Much of the original data underlying the scientific findings discussed here are available at:

• https://data.ucar.edu/
• https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu
• https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu
• https://ess-dive.lbl.gov/
• https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
• https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
• http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu
• http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth's climate. The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences, with their similar missions to promote the use of science to benefit society and to inform critical policy debates, produced the original Climate Change: Evidence and Causes in 2014. It was written and reviewed by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists. This new edition, prepared by the same author team, has been updated with the most recent climate data and scientific analyses, all of which reinforce our understanding of human-caused climate change.

Scientific information is a vital component for society to make informed decisions about how to reduce the magnitude of climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. This booklet serves as a key reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and others seeking authoritative answers about the current state of climate-change science.

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Climate change has changed the way I think about science. Here’s why

Research fellow, Australian National University

Disclosure statement

Sophie Lewis receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is the author of the book discussed in this article, and has received remuneration for its publication but does not receive royalties.

Australian National University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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I’ve wanted to be a scientist since I was five years old.

My idea of a scientist was someone in a lab, making hypotheses and testing theories. We often think of science only as a linear, objective process. This is also the way that science is presented in peer reviewed journal articles – a study begins with a research question or hypothesis, followed by methods, results and conclusions.

It turns out that my work now as a climate scientist doesn’t quite gel with the way we typically talk about science and how science works.

Climate change, and doing climate change research, has changed the way I see and do science. Here are five points that explain why.

Read more : Australia needs dozens more scientists to monitor climage properly

1. Methods aren’t always necessarily falsifiable

Falsifiability is the idea that an assertion can be shown to be false by an experiment or an observation, and is critical to distinctions between “true science” and “ pseudoscience ”.

Climate models are important and complex tools for understanding the climate system. Are climate models falsifiable? Are they science? A test of falsifiability requires a model test or climate observation that shows global warming caused by increased human-produced greenhouse gases is untrue. It is difficult to propose a test of climate models in advance that is falsifiable.

This difficulty doesn’t mean that climate models or climate science are invalid or untrustworthy. Climate models are carefully developed and evaluated based on their ability to accurately reproduce observed climate trends and processes. This is why climatologists have confidence in them as scientific tools, not because of ideas around falsifiability.

2. There’s lots of ways to interpret data

Climate research is messy. I spent four years of my PhD reconstructing past changes in Australian and Indonesian rainfall over many thousands of years. Reconstructing the past is inherently problematic. It is riddled with uncertainty and subject to our individual interpretations.

During my PhD, I submitted a paper for publication detailing an interpretation of changes in Indonesian climates, derived from a stalagmite that formed deep in a cave.

My coauthors had disparate views about what, in particular, this stalagmite was telling us. Then, when my paper was returned from the process of peer review, seemingly in shreds, it turns out the two reviewers themselves had directly opposing views about the record.

What happens when everyone who looks at data has a different idea about what it means? (The published paper reflects a range of different viewpoints).

Another example of ambiguity emerged around the discussion of the hiatus in global warming. This was the temporary slowdown in the rate of global warming at the Earth’s surface occurring roughly over the 15 year period since 1997. Some sceptics were adamant that this was unequivocal proof that the world was not warming at all and that global warming was unfounded.

There was an avalanche of academic interest in the warming slowdown. It was attributed to a multitude of causes, including deep ocean processes, aerosols, measurement error and the end of ozone depletion.

Ambiguity and uncertainty are key parts of the natural world, and scientific exploration of it.

3. Sometimes the scientist matters as well as the results

I regularly present my scientific results at public lectures or community events. I used to show a photo depicting a Tasmanian family sheltering under a pier from a fire front. The sky is suffused with heat. In the ocean, a grandmother holds two children while their sister helps her brother cling to underside of the pier.

After a few talks, I had to remove the photo from my PowerPoint presentation because each time I turned around to discuss it, it would make me teary. I felt so strongly that the year we were living was a chilling taste of our world to come.

Just outside of Sydney, tinderbox conditions occurred in early spring of 2013, following a dry, warm winter. Bushfires raged far too early in the season. I was frightened of a world 1°C hotter than now (regardless of what the equilibrium climate sensitivity turns out to be).

At public lectures and community events, people want to know that I am frightened about bushfires. They want to know that I am concerned about the vulnerability of our elderly to increasing summer heat stress. People want to know that, among everything else, I remain optimistic about our collective resilience and desire to care for each other.

Read more: Distrust of experts happens when we forget they are human beings

Communicating how we connect with scientific results is also important part of the role of climate scientists. That photo of the family who survived the Tasmanian bushfire is now back in my presentations.

4. Society matters too

In November 2009, computer servers at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked and email correspondence was stolen.

A selection of these emails was published publicly, focusing on quotes that purported to reveal dishonest practices that promoted the myth of global warming. The “climategate” scientists were exhaustively cleared of wrongdoing.

On the surface, the climategate emails were an unpleasant but unremarkable event. But delving a little deeper, this can be seen as a significant turning point in society’s expectations of science.

While numerous fastidious reviews of the scientists cleared them of wrongdoing, the strong and ongoing public interest in this matter demonstrates that society wants to know how science works, and who “does” science.

There is a great desire for public connection with the processes of science and the outcomes of scientific pursuits. The public is not necessarily satisfied by scientists working in universities and publishing their finding in articles obscured by pay walls, which cannot be publicly accessed.

A greater transparency of science is required. This is already taking off, with scientists communicating broadly through social and mainstream media and publishing in open access journals.

5. Non-experts can be scientists

Climate science increasingly recognises the value of citizen scientists .

Enlisting non-expert volunteers allows researchers to investigate otherwise very difficult problems, for example when the research would have been financially and logistically impossible without citizen participation.

Read more: Exoplanet discovery by an amateur astronomer shows the power of citizen science

The OzDocs project involved volunteers digitising early records of Australian weather from weather journals, government gazettes, newspapers and our earliest observatories. This project provided a better understanding of the climate history of southeastern Australia.

Personal computers also provide another great tool for citizen collaborators. In one ongoing project, climate scientists conduct experiments using publicly volunteered distributed computing. Participants agree to run experiments on their home or work computers and the results are fed back to the main server for analysis.

While we often think of scientists as trained experts working in labs and publishing in scholarly journals, the lines aren’t always so clear. Everyone has an opportunity to contribute to science.

My new book explores this space between the way science is discussed and the way it takes place.

This isn’t a criticism of science, which provides a useful way to explore and understand the natural world. It is a celebration of the richness, diversity and creativity of science that drives this exploration.

• Climate change
• Science communication
• Citizen science
• Scientists at work

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Public health beliefs predict support for climate action, study shows

by Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

A paper published in the current issue of the Journal of Health Communication by Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) researchers finds evidence that holding science-consistent beliefs about the public health effects of climate change is an important predictor of support for policies that address climate threats.

In "Science-Consistent Climate Health Beliefs as Predictors of Climate Behaviors and Support for Inflation Reduction Act Provisions and a Carbon Emissions Tax," a research team from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania examined the relationship between health-related beliefs about climate change and support for climate policy proposals, as well as a willingness to advocate for climate policies and to report engaging in pro-climate behaviors.

The researchers found that science-consistent beliefs about the effects of climate change on public health predicted support for climate action, even after controlling for belief in the existence and cause of climate change.

"In this study, people who believe that these public health effects of climate change are real were more likely to support climate action, regardless of whether they said they believed that climate change is real and human-caused," said lead author Shawn Patterson Jr., a research analyst at APPC.

The public health dangers posed by climate change include increased water-borne illnesses, bug-borne diseases, effects on crops, and premature births, among others. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change will cause about 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 "from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone."

The finding that science-consistent beliefs about these health risks predicts support for climate action has important implications for messaging about climate change.

"This study provides additional evidence that belief grounded in science-consistent knowledge matters," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of APPC and a co-author of the study.

In addition to Patterson and Jamieson, the study was co-authored by Patrick E. Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Health and Risk Communication Institute at APPC.

The data for the study were drawn from the Annenberg Science and Public Health (ASAPH) knowledge survey.

Journal information: Journal of Health Communication

Provided by Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

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Dilemma on Wall Street: Short-Term Gain or Climate Benefit?

Portfolio managers have conflicting incentives as the economic and financial risks from climate change become more apparent but remain imprecise.

Credit... Edmon de Haro

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By Lydia DePillis

• June 20, 2024

A team of economists recently analyzed 20 years of peer-reviewed research on the social cost of carbon, an estimate of the damage from climate change. They concluded that the average cost, adjusted for improved methods, is substantially higher than even the U.S. government’s most up-to-date figure.

That means greenhouse gas emissions, over time, will take a larger toll than regulators are accounting for. As tools for measuring the links between weather patterns and economic output evolve — and the interactions between weather and the economy magnify the costs in unpredictable ways — the damage estimates have only risen.

It’s the kind of data that one might expect to set off alarm bells across the financial industry, which closely tracks economic developments that might affect portfolios of stocks and loans. But it was hard to detect even a ripple.

In fact, the news from Wall Street lately has mostly been about retreat from climate goals, rather than recommitment. Banks and asset managers are withdrawing from international climate alliances and chafing at their rules. Regional banks are stepping up lending to fossil fuel producers. Sustainable investment funds have sustained crippling outflows , and many have collapsed .

So what explains this apparent disconnect? In some cases, it’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma: If firms collectively shift to cleaner energy, a cooler climate benefits everyone more in the future. But in the short term, each firm has an individual incentive to cash in on fossil fuels, making the transition much harder to achieve.

And when it comes to avoiding climate damage to their own operations, the financial industry is genuinely struggling to comprehend what a warming future will mean.

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• 18 June 2024

How climate change is hitting Europe: three graphics reveal health impacts

• Carissa Wong 0

Carissa Wong is a science journalist in London.

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A water spray helps people in Bratislava to cool down on a hot summer day. Credit: Bilge Kagan Kaya/Alamy

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Global warming is costing lives, deepening health inequality and driving the spread of disease-carrying ticks and parasites across Europe, according to a major report.

The report reviewed hundreds of studies on the health effects of climate change — as well as the actions being taken in response — in Europe. Climate and health researcher Rachel Lowe and her colleagues tracked 42 indicators, including those on heat-related deaths, the spread of infectious diseases and trends in research on health and climate change.

Extreme heat harms health — what is the human body’s limit?

“We really need some drastic action to be taken by European countries to help keep the European population, and also populations across the globe, safe from the health impacts of climate change,” says Lowe, who is at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies in Spain.

The report, published last month in Lancet Public Health 1 , is the second — after one published in 2022 2 — from a study called ‘The Lancet Countdown: Health and Climate Change in Europe’.

“The report emphasizes the alarming increase in mortality and morbidity linked to rising temperatures, and the proliferation of climate-sensitive diseases,” says Ana Raquel Nunes, a health and environment researcher at the University of Warwick, UK.

Researchers say that further studies should take a holistic approach to the climate–health nexus. “You can’t treat all these health impacts of climate change in isolation,” says Ruth Doherty, a climate-change and health researcher at the University of Edinburgh, UK. “We really need to know about how these multiple exposures affect the population.”

In three graphics, Nature outlines how a warmer world is affecting health and research across Europe.

Deadly heat

Lowe and her colleagues used mortality and temperature data, as well as prior evidence for how heat influences mortality, to estimate that, from 2003–12 to 2013–22, heat-related mortality increased by an average of 17 deaths per 100,000 people across Europe. The increase in heat-related mortality was higher in women compared with men (See ‘Heat kills’).

Source: Ref 1.

“Gender disparities may be explained by differences in terms of losing heat from the body and maximum sweat rates,” says Kim van Daalen, who studies climate change, disease and gender inequity at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Women might also generally be at greater risk of heat stress after ovulation, when they tend to have higher body temperature, she says.

Another factor that could be driving the gender gap is that women generally reach older ages than men, and older people are generally more vulnerable to heat-related stresses, says Lowe. Older people are also more likely to live alone, which puts them in greater danger from heat, she says.

Ticks and parasites

Warmer temperatures are enabling disease-carrying parasites to expand into more regions and spurring the growth of tick populations. One pathogen that is becoming more widespread owing to climate change is the single-cell parasite Leishmania infantum . It is transmitted to people when female sandflies ( Phlebotomus sp. ) bite human skin to feed on blood. The parasite usually causes skin ulcers across the body, which can be debilitating. In extreme cases, it can cause fevers and the swelling of the spleen and liver, and could be fatal.

The researchers estimated that warmer and more-humid conditions across Europe have enabled sandflies and the parasites they carry to spread north into new territories. Their range was wider in the 2010s than in the 2000s. “Rising temperatures create more favourable conditions for sandflies to survive and reproduce,” says van Daalen. “Warmer conditions can also accelerate the life cycle of the parasite within sandflies,” she says (See ‘Inching North’).

The team also found that warmer temperatures have made Europe more suitable for the tick Ixodes ricinus , which can transmit a range of diseases when it bites people. “Tick-borne diseases, such as Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis, cause symptoms ranging from flu-like illness to severe neurological and cardiovascular complications, leading to missed work, long-term disability and substantial health-care costs,” says van Daalen.

Across most of the continent, I. ricinus found a more hospitable climate to feed and grow in 2013–22 than it did in 1951–60, as measured by the average number of months per year when temperatures were optimal for the juvenile stage of its life cycle.

Publishing boom

As the world warms, research on how climate change intersects with Europeans’ health has intensified, as seen in the number of papers tracked in the open-access database OpenAlex. The researchers counted hundreds of studies on how climate change and Europeans’ health intersect, published between 1991 and 2022. The majority of those studies focused on how global warming affects health, but some also looked into the greenhouse gases emitted by health-care systems, or how to protect people from climate change that is already happening (See ‘Hot topic’).

The authors also found that around 2% of the studies published in 2022 on climate health referenced equality, equity or justice. “This highlights a substantial gap in research,” says van Daalen. “To properly respond to the climate-related health impacts, it is important to understand which populations are disproportionately affected and most at risk,” she says.

Nature 630 , 800-801 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02006-3

Van Daalen, K. R. et al. Lancet Public Health https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00055-0 (2024).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Van Daalen, K. R. et al. Lancet Public Health 7 , e942–e965 (2022).

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