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Topic: Anthropogenic climate variability

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	Footnotes for Table 1 of IPCC SPM WG II
		Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forcings, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.
		Climate projections are distinguished from climate predictions in order to emphasise that climate projections depend upon the emission/concentration/ radiative forcing scenario used, which are based on assumptions, concerning, e.g., future socio-economic and technological developments, that may or may not be realised, and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty.
		Climate variability refers to variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, etc.) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events.
	www.greenfacts.org /studies/climate_change/toolboxes/glossary.htm (7529 words)

	Aviation and the Global Atmosphere (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Finally, "climate change" is often taken to mean climate fluctuations of a global nature, including effects from human activities such as the enhanced greenhouse effect and from natural causes such as volcanic aerosols.
		On time scales of tens of thousands of years, slow variations in the Earth's orbit, which are well understood, have led to changes in the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of solar radiation; these changes have played an important part in controlling variations of climate in the distant past, such as glacial cycles.
		Climate variations can also occur in the absence of a change in external forcing, as a result of complex interactions between components of the climate system such as the atmosphere and ocean.
	www.grida.no /climate/ipcc/aviation/066.htm (1059 words)

	Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Nonetheless, conclusions on the detection of an anthropogenic signal are insensitive to the model used to estimate internal variability and recent changes cannot be accounted for as pure internal variability even if the amplitude of simulated internal variations is increased by a factor of two or more.
		In most recent studies, the residual variability that remains in the observations after removal of the estimated anthropogenic signals is consistent with model-simulated variability on the space- and time-scales used for detection and attribution.
		Statistical assessments confirm that natural variability (the combination of internal and naturally forced) is unlikely to explain the warming in the latter half of the 20th century.
	www.grida.no /climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/440.htm (679 words)

	Climate Change : 2. What causes this climate change?
		Characterisation of these climate forcing agents and their changes over time (see Figure 2) is required to understand past climate changes in the context of natural variations and to project what climate changes could lie ahead.
		Such models cannot yet simulate all aspects of climate (e.g., they still cannot account fully for the observed trend in the surface-troposphere temperature difference since 1979) and there are particular uncertainties associated with clouds and their interaction with radiation and aerosols.
		Reconstructions of climate data for the past 1,000 years (Figure 1b) also indicate that this warming was unusual and is unlikely7 to be entirely natural in origin.
	www.greenfacts.org /studies/climate_change/l_3/climate_change_2.htm (2296 words)

	Climate - Extreme Weather
		Climate variability (the natural variation of climate at a location) and climate change (anthropogenic causes of climate change) manifest themselves in a variety of ways over a wide range of spatial and tempo ral scales.
		Climate variability and change may be detrimental or even beneficial to a region depending o n their resultant effects.
		Any climate change is superimposed on natural climate variability and it is difficult to discern the two.
	www.rwic.und.edu /climate/extremewx.html (497 words)

	[No title]
		Long-term impacts of climate change in coastal areas, such as sea level rise or storm surges, could result in the increased erosion of shores and associated habitat, increased salinity of estuaries and freshwater aquifers, altered tidal ranges in rivers and bays, changes in sediment and nutrient transport, and increased coastal flooding.
		The benefits to society of this approach are: (1) improved detection of climate change signals in the ocean; (2) improved models of natural and anthropogenic climate variability; (3) quantification of the predictability of long-time scale climate variability; and (4) reduced uncertainties in CO2 warming scenarios.
		Analyses of observations and various model runs with and without CO2 increases provide data for: (1) increased understanding of the dynamics of the coupled ocean atmosphere system; (2) identification of climatically important oceanic features to monitor; (3) model validation; (4) predictability studies; and (5) separation of natural and anthropogenic climate change.
	www.yoto98.noaa.gov /yoto/meeting/doc/climate_316.doc (15077 words)

	Observing Climate Variability and Change
		The effects of climate variability and change ripple throughout the environment and society - indeed touching nearly all aspects of the human endeavor and the environment.
		Much climate research has focused on determining whether the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases is the cause of the observed changes in the last century's climate.
		Sponsorship of scientific research aimed at understanding climate variability and change and its predictability over a continuum of timescales from seasonal to decadal and beyond.
	www.oar.noaa.gov /climate/t_observing.html (1508 words)

	AWI: Climate System: Decadal Climate Variability
		An improved understanding of the nonlinear origins of climate fluctuations due to internal mechanisms in the atmosphere itself is needed to distinguish between the natural and anthropogenic contributions and the observed climate variations.
		In a regional climate model of the Arctic a dynamical downscaling of decadal scale climate variations will be carried out, driven at the lateral and lower boundaries by results from the global coupled atmosphere-ocean circulation model ECHO-G.
		The aim is to reach a realistic simulation of atmospheric variability and an improved understanding of the causes of decadal scale climate variability depending on thermal and orographic forcing and transient processes.
	www.awi-bremerhaven.de /Climate/rnddecclimvar.html (316 words)

	CLIMATE--Los Alamos Energy Security (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Climate variability presents a range of challenges to the future well-being of society.
		One of the principal impacts is from climate variability, induced by both natural cycles and anthropogenic forcing.
		Reducing the uncertainty in regional climate variability predictions is key to adapting to and mitigating climate change effects.
	www.lanl.gov /energy/compendium/climate/index.html (584 words)

	Climate Variability and Change. Highlights of Recent Research and Plans for FY 2004 and FY 2005. From our Changing ...
		Climate variability and change can profoundly influence social and natural environments throughout the world, with consequent impacts on natural resources and industry that can be large and far-reaching.
		For example, future changes in climate variability, for example a variation in the frequency and nature of EN SO events or the severity and duration of droughts, will depend partly on changes in global (and regional) mean conditions.
		Climate models project that the high latitude regions are particularly sensitive to climate change because of the positive albedo feedback effects associated with reduction of ice and snow cover, and the reduction of thermal insulation of the ocean that sea ice cover provides, allowing increased heat transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere.
	www.usgcrp.gov /usgcrp/Library/ocp2004-5/ocp2004-5-hi-clivar.htm (5206 words)

	Impacts of Global Climate Change
		Analyses of observations and various model runs with and without CO increases provide data for: (1) increased understanding of the dynamics of the coupled ocean atmosphere system; (2) identification of climatically important oceanic features to monitor; (3) model validation; (4) predictability studies; and (5) separation of natural and anthropogenic climate change.
		The benefits to society of this approach are: (1) improved detection of climate change signals in the ocean; (2) improved models of natural and anthropogenic climate variability; (3) quantification of the predictability of long-time scale climate variability; and (4) reduced uncertainties in CO warming scenarios.
		While climate change impacts such as accelerated sea level rise are a potentially major concern, state and local governments have hesitated to address the issues effectively because of the relatively long-term nature of the problem, scientific uncertainties and, in some cases, the large investments required.
	www.yoto98.noaa.gov /yoto/meeting/climate_316.html (15757 words)

	Climate System Variability - Research @ CIRES
		Understanding, and potentially predicting, climate changes is critical to the public, as well as to a broad array of decision-makers within federal and state government, industry, resources management and hazard mitigation.
		Also, "large-scale" and "long-term" climate variations may be linked to variations in local weather conditions such as temperature, precipitation, cloud cover and storminess, as well as in atmospheric carbon dioxide, ozone, and water vapor.
		This is particularly important since the power spectra of the major modes of climate variability such as ENSO, the NAO, and the Arctic and Antarctic "oscillations" are difficult to distinguish from noise at the lowest frequencies.
	cires.colorado.edu /science/themes/climate/research.html (851 words)

	Solubility_Pump
		The Solubility Pump Working Group evaluated human-induced and climatic influences on spatial and temporal scales of solubility-driven storage of carbon in the oceans in relation to their impact on the atmospheric CO The solubility pump is often defined as the carbon exchange mediated by physical processes such as heat flux, advection, and diffusion.
		The objectives are: (1) to quantify changes in the rates and spatial patterns of oceanic carbon uptake, fluxes and storage of anthropogenic CO ; (2) to detect and quantify changes in water mass renewal and mixing rates; and (3) to provide a validation of the time integration of models of natural and anthropogenic climate variability.
		Since the oceans and atmosphere are the primary reservoirs where CO is redistributed on earth, it is important, for a better understanding of climate variability, to determine the mechanisms and rates of its redistribution.
	www.msrc.sunysb.edu /octet/solubility_pump.html (3324 words)

	Summary for Policymakers: The Science of Climate Change - IPCC Working Group I
		Any humaninduced effect on climate will be superimposed on the background "noise" of natural climate variability, which results both from internal fluctuations and from external causes such as solar variability or volcanic eruptions.
		More convincing recent evidence for the attribution of a human effect on climate is emerging from patternbased studies, in which the modelled climate response to combined forcing by greenhouse gases and anthropogenic sulphate aerosols is compared with observed geographical, seasonal and vertical patterns of atmospheric temperature change.
		This differs from the usage in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change where "climate change" refers to a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.
	www.ipcc.ch /pub/sarsum1.htm (2951 words)

	NCCR-Climate: MONALISA: Introduction
		Internal climate variability is, however, not only responsible for the variations on interseasonal to interannual time scales, but also on decadal to centennial time scales.
		From the point of view of impacts on society, investigation of the possible link between climate variability and extreme weather events, such as floods and drought, is very important.
		A comprehensive and pronounced understanding of inter-related natural climate variability, anthropogenic climate change, and extreme weather events, is a non-trivial scientific challenge, yet an urgent task imposed on modern climatologists.
	www.climate.unibe.ch /~raible/nccr/p11_intro.html (319 words)

	Detection and Attribution of Climate Change (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		The purpose of the climate change detection and attribution activity is to identify variability and trends in the climate system and to ascribe these changes to specific causative factors, whether natural or man-induced.
		Climate change can be the result of: 1) natural internal variability; 2) natural external factors (e.g., changes in solar input, eruption of volcanoes); or 3) man-made factors (e.g., injection of GHGs and sulfates into the atmosphere).
		Through analysis of paleo-proxy records (tree rings, ice cores, corals, etc.), past climate variations in the pre-industrial era can be described and used to provide a context for statements about present and future climate possibilities.
	www.ogp.noaa.gov /mpe/ccdd/spotlight/detect6_00.htm (747 words)

	Climate change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		More generally, most forms of internal variability in the climate system can be recognized as a form of hysteresis, meaning that the current state of climate reflects not only the inputs, but also the history of how it got there.
		Variations in solar activity during the last several centuries based on observations of sunspots and beryllium isotopes.
		In their impact on climate, orbital variations are in some sense an extension of solar variability, because slight variations in the Earth's orbit lead to changes in the distribution and abundance of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Anthropogenic_climate_change (3114 words)

	Recent Advances in PhOD
		These new results will be used to validate the numerical models being developed to forecast climate change and in studies of the Intergovernmental Project on Climate Change to evaluate the role of the ocean in anthropogenic climate variability.
		Decadal variability in surface heat fluxes can most clearly be seen from high quality hydrographic sections sufficiently accurate enough to measure the small changes in temperature seen between sections taken during different epochs.
		AOML scientists have identified a multidecadal mode of sea-surface temperature variability that is correlated to Atlantic hurricane activity - warm North Atlantic is associated with active conditions for Atlantic hurricanes.
	www.aoml.noaa.gov /phod/bullets.html (599 words)

	Decision Support Research: Bridging Science and Service (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		The important impacts of both natural and anthropogenic climate variability and change are, and will be, manifest as the regional impacts of climate variability.
		Although this is a difficult objective, on-going integrated regional climate science and assessment efforts are demonstrating that it is possible and the returns to our scientific enterprise and our ability to cope with climate will be substantial.
		Through studies in these areas, researchers coordinate activities that jointly contribute to improved predictions and assessments of climate variability over a continuum of timescales from season to season, year to year, and over the course of a decade and beyond.
	www.oar.noaa.gov /spotlite/archive/spot_risa.html (823 words)

	Atmospheric sciences - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting.
		Climatology is the study of atmospheric changes (both long and short-term) that define average climates and their change over time, due to both natural climate variability and anthropogenic climate variability.
		Atmospheric science has been extended to the field of planetary science and the study of the atmospheres of the planets of the solar system.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Atmospheric_sciences (147 words)

	OCTET Prospectus
		A longer term focus of OCTET is to determine the role of the ocean carbon cycle in amplifying or ameliorating natural and anthropogenic variation in atmospheric CO, and thus climate change.
		A near-term goal is constraining the spatial and temporal patterns of surface CO concentrations and fluxes in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans on seasonal and interannual timescales.
		The variability of the air-sea CO fluxes in the northern hemisphere is an important element in reconstructing the patterns and magnitude of terrestrial carbon uptake using the atmospheric CO monitoring network and transport inversion models.
	www.msrc.sunysb.edu /octet/Prospectus.html (2140 words)

	Climate Dynamics Group (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		The Climate Dynamics Group (CDG) at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) Center for Science in the Earth System (CSES) studies the large scale variability and predictability of the coupled atmosphere-ocean system with special emphasis on those processes of most relevance to the Pacific Northwest.
		Members of CDG have expertise in atmosphere, ocean and coupled modeling; in the diagnostics of the atmosphere and ocean; and in the analytic description of the climate system.
		Members of the CDG are active in formulating and leading national and international climate programs.
	www.cses.washington.edu /cdg (171 words)

	ATM656
		Understand basic concepts in climate such as: Global energy balance, Surface energy balance, Hydrological cycle, Atmospheric and Oceanic general circulation as related to climate, Past climate, climate feedbacks, and Natural and Anthropogenic climate variability/change
		Climate 'Dynamics' is first the description of a certain phenomena and then it is understanding the processes are responsible for this variability.
		First you must to some extent memorize climate maps and phenomena and be able to describe them verbally.
	www.gi.alaska.edu /~bhatt/Teaching/ATM656.fall2005/atm656.fall05.html (902 words)

	Task 3-Climate Variability
		The overall goal of this task is to develop a long-term (decadal- to millennial-scale) Holocene and late glacial paleoclimate record using estuarine sediments that contain proxies of precipitation (which influences salinity via stream discharge), water temperature, and atmospheric temperature.
		Establish the baseline variability of climatic variability for comparison with post-industrial variability to search for anthropogenic influence.
		Document impact of abrupt climate changes such as the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, the 8.2 ka cooling and the Younger Dryas on the estuarine ecosystem including temperature and salinity.
	geology.er.usgs.gov /eespteam/Atlantic/Task3.htm (273 words)

	Changes to Chapter 8
		Any such attribution-related conclusions, however, rest heavily on the reliability of our estimates of both century time-scale natural variability and the magnitude of the observed global warming mean trend.
		Other scientists would and have claimed, on the basis of the statistical results presented in Section 8.4, that confident detection of a significant anthropogenic climate change has already occurred.
		Furthermore, although quantitative attribution studies have not explicitly considered solar and volcanic effects, our best information indicates that the observed patterns of vertical temperature change are not consistent with the responses expected for these forcings.
	www.sepp.org /Archive/controv/ipcccont/Item03.htm (1445 words)

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