Originally published September 5, 2023 4:00 pm PDT
A groundbreaking study recently published in the journal Climate has shed light on the causes behind recent global warming trends.
Contrary to widespread belief linking human activity as the primary cause of climate change, this research indicates that up to 87% of contemporary warming might be attributed to variations in solar activity.
This research, carried out by a team of 37 scientists, primarily focused on the temperature data of the Northern Hemisphere from 1850-2018.
Two distinct temperature sets were analyzed: one combining rural and urban temperatures and another relying solely on rural data.
Interestingly, when urban heat effects—which are non-climatic and artificial—were excluded, the post-1850 warming trend dropped from 0.89°C per century to just 0.55°C per century.
This finding challenges the widely held belief that current thermometer-based global temperature measurements are minimally impacted by urban warming biases.
In a compelling abstract from the study, the authors stated, “A statistical analysis was applied to Northern Hemisphere land surface temperatures (1850–2018) to try to identify the main drivers of the observed warming since the mid-19th century.”
The abstract further detailed that “the rural and urban blend indicates a long-term warming of 0.89 °C/century since 1850, while the rural-only indicates 0.55 °C/century.”
The research also evaluated the role of various climatic drivers, including natural solar and volcanic activities and human-caused changes.
While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s recent 6th Assessment Report (AR6) recommended a specific dataset for total solar irradiance (TSI), this study contrasted it with another TSI dataset that AR6 seemed to have overlooked.
This comparison resulted in significantly different conclusions about the main contributors to observed warming trends.
Addressing these differences, the study noted, “It was found that altering the temperature estimate and/or the choice of solar forcing dataset resulted in very different conclusions as to the primary drivers of the observed warming.”
The paper emphasized the existing challenges in pinpointing the predominant cause of global warming, highlighting the urbanization bias in global land temperature data and the uncertainty in determining the most accurate TSI time series.
Concluding their findings, the researchers asserted, “the scientific community is not yet in a position to confidently establish whether the warming since 1850 is mostly human-caused, mostly natural, or some combination. Suggestions for how these scientific challenges might be resolved are offered.”
In the wake of this research, the discussion around global warming is poised to evolve, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive data analysis in shaping future climate change policies.
The study was pointed out by NoTrickZone’s Kenneth Richard.
Read the full study below:
