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Are Natural Climate Forcings Able to Counteract the Projected Anthropogenic Global Warming?

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Abstract

A two-dimensional global climate model is used to assessthe climatic changes associated with the new IPCC SRES emissions scenarios and to determine which kind of changes in total solar irradiance and volcanic perturbations could mask the projected anthropogenic global warming associated to the SRES scenarios. Our results suggest that only extremely unlikely changes in total solar irradiance and/or volcanic eruptions would be able to overcome the simulated anthropogenic global warming over the century. Nevertheless, in the critical interval of the next two decades the externally-driven natural climate variability might possibly confuse the debate about temperature trends and impede detection of the anthropogenic climate change signal.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique G. Lemaître, Université catholique de Louvain, 2 Chemin du Cyclotron, B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Cédric Bertrand, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele & André Berger

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  1. Cédric Bertrand
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  2. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele
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  3. André Berger
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Bertrand, C., van Ypersele, JP. & Berger, A. Are Natural Climate Forcings Able to Counteract the Projected Anthropogenic Global Warming?. Climatic Change 55, 413–427 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020736804608

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