Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Attributing observed Greenland responses to natural and anthropogenic climate forcings

0720_climatedynamicscover

Research supported by the NOAA Climate Program Office has recently been published in the journal Climate Dynamics
The paper by Andres and Peltier, “Attributing observed Greenland responses to natural and anthropogenic climate forcings,” enhances our understanding of the contributions of anthropogenic forcing and natural variability to changing precipitation, increased surface temperatures, and subsequent melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. 
CCSM3 simulations are compared to observational reconstructions to determine how well the model represents observed Greenland surface conditions. 
This work shows that although greenhouse gas increases account for the majority of the temperature and precipitation increases in the model after the mid-1900s, the observational reconstructions for Greenland show that temperatures and precipitation do not increase until the mid-1990s. This suggests that the model over-predicts the response to greenhouse gases over the twentieth century and that CCSM3 is not capturing processes that are proving important to Greenland surface conditions. 
The results of this study highlight the need for further research to determine the influence of physical processes and natural variability counteracting greenhouse gas forcing in the observed climatology of Greenland during the industrial period. 
Access the article at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2514-4

More News

Scroll to Top