• DOI:10.1038/NGEO338
• Corpus ID: 129243936

Attribution of polar warming to human influence

@article{Gillett2008AttributionOP,
  title={Attribution of polar warming to human influence},
  author={Nathan P. Gillett and D{\'a}ith{\'i} A. Stone and Peter A. Stott and Toru Nozawa and Alexey Yu. Karpechko and Gabriele C. Hegerl and Michael F. Wehner and Philip D. Jones},
  journal={Nature Geoscience},
  year={2008},
  volume={1},
  pages={750-754}
}

• N. Gillett, D. Stone, +5 authors P. Jones
• Published 1 November 2008
• Environmental Science
• Nature Geoscience

Polar temperatures have been warming significantly over the past few decades. A comparison between observational temperature records and model simulations shows that temperature changes in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions can be attributed to human activity. The polar regions have long been expected to warm strongly as a result of anthropogenic climate change, because of the positive feedbacks associated with melting ice and snow1,2. Several studies have noted a rise in Arctic temperatures over recent decades2,3,4, but have not formally attributed the changes to human influence, owing to sparse observations and large natural variability5,6. Both warming and cooling trends have been observed in Antarctica7, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report concludes is the only continent where anthropogenic temperature changes have not been detected so far, possibly as a result of insufficient observational coverage8. Here we use an up-to-date gridded data set of land surface temperatures9,10 and simulations from four coupled climate models to assess the causes of the observed polar temperature changes. We find that the observed changes in Arctic and Antarctic temperatures are not consistent with internal climate variability or natural climate drivers alone, and are directly attributable to human influence. Our results demonstrate that human activities have already caused significant warming in both polar regions, with likely impacts on polar biology, indigenous communities2, ice-sheet mass balance and global sea level11.