High Mountain Asia (HMA) has experienced a spatial imbalance in water resources in recent decades, partly because of a dipolar pattern of precipitation changes known as South Drying–North Wetting1. These changes can be influenced by both human activities and internal climate variability2,3. Although climate projections indicate a future widespread wetting trend over HMA1,4, the timing and mechanism of the transition from a dipolar to a monopolar pattern remain unknown. Here we demonstrate that the observed dipolar precipitation change in HMA during summer is primarily driven by westerly- and monsoon-associated precipitation patterns. The weakening of the Asian westerly jet, caused by the uneven emission of anthropogenic aerosols, favoured a dipolar precipitation trend from 1951 to 2020. Moreover, the phase transition of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation induces an out-of-phase precipitation change between the core region of the South Asian monsoon and southeastern HMA. Under m
Wildfires in California destroyed five times more areas between 1996 and 2020 than they did from 1971 to 1995. Investigators from the University of California and other international institutions have established that human-caused climate change is to blame for nearly all of the increase in scorched terrain.
In the quarter century between 1996 and 2020, wildfires in California consumed five times more area than they did from 1971 to 1995. Researchers at the University of California and other international institutions have concluded that nearly all of the increase in scorched terrain can be blamed on human-caused climate change.
Gillett et al. (2021) global warming attribution study
Posted on 19 January 2021 by dana1981
A new study published in Nature Climate Change, Gillett et al. (2021), is the latest in a long line of detection and attribution studies published over the past 20-plus years that have sought to quantify the factors responsible for the rise in average global surface temperatures.
Gillett et al. used Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project simulations from 13 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models. The authors note that the CMIP6 historical simulations show very little net anthropogenic warming before the 1960s. This contrasts with the CMIP5 historical simulations, which showed on average approximately 0.2°C warming by the mid-twentieth century.