Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Historical Evidence for Anthropogenic Climate Change and Climate Modeling Basics

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Climate Change and Groundwater: Planning and Adaptations for a Changing and Uncertain Future

Part of the book series: Springer Hydrogeology ((SPRINGERHYDRO))

  • 447 Accesses

Abstract

Data on mean global surface temperature relative to the 1951–1980 average indicate an increase of 0.98 °C (1.76 °F) by 2019 with a clear upward trend since the late 1970s and nineteen of the twenty warmest years having occurred since 2001. The IPCC concluded that there is low confidence that average precipitation over global land areas had changed between 1901 and 1951 and a medium confidence that it had changed afterwards. Global mean sea level had risen by about 0.23 m (9 in) between 1880 and 2019, with the rate of rise having increased since the middle 1990s and is reported to have been 3.6 mm/yr over the period 2006–2015. The foundation for climate change projections is general circulation models (GCMs). The most recent IPCC reports have been supported by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), an international collaboration of climate modeling groups in which simulations were run with different GCMs using the same set of future emissions scenarios. CMIP3 and the IPCC AR4 used a suite of SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) scenarios. CMIP5 and IPCC AR5 used four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Alder JR and Hostetler SW (2013) CMIP5 global climate change viewer. US Geological Survey http://regclim.coas.oregonstate.edu/gccv/index.html, https://doi.org/10.5066/f72j68w0. Accessed 27 May 2020

  • Alder JR, Hostetler SW, Williams D (2013) An interactive web application for visualizing climate data. Eos Trans Am Geophys Union 94:197–198

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Anthes RA, Corell RW, Holland G, Hurrell JW, Mac Cracken MC, Trenberth KE (2006) Hurricanes and global warming—potential linkages and consequences. Bull Am Meteor Soc 87(5):623–628

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Blaha JP (1984) Fluctuations of monthly sea level as related to the intensity of the Gulf Stream from Key West to Norfolk. J Geophys Res Oceans 89(C5):8033–8042

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen X, Zhang X, Church JA, Watson CS, King MA, Monselesan D, Legresy B, Harig C (2017) The increasing rate of global mean sea-level rise during 1993–2014. Nat Clim Change 7(7):492–495

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Dai A (2013) Increasing drought under global warming in observations and models. Nat Clim Change 3(1):52–58

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Dangendorf S, Hay C, Calafat FM, Marcos M, Piecuch CG, Berk K, Jensen J (2019) Persistent acceleration in global sea-level rise since the 1960s. Nat Clim Change 9(9):705–710

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Dong S, Baringer MO, Goni GJ (2019) Slow down of the Gulf Stream during 1993–2016. Sci Rep 9(1):6672

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Emanuel KA (1987) The dependence of hurricane intensity on climate. Nature 326:482–485

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Emanuel K (2005) Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436(7051):686–686

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Emori S, Taylor K, Hewitson B, Zermoglio F, Juckes M, Lautenschlager M, Stockhause M (2016) CMIP5 data provided at the IPCC data distribution centre. Fact Sheet, Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis (TGICA) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

    Google Scholar 

  • Eyring V, Bony S, Meehl GA, Senior CA, Stevens B, Stouffer RJ, Taylor KE (2016) Overview of the coupled model intercomparison project phase 6 (CMIP6) experimental design and organization. Geosci Model Dev, 9 (LLNL-JRNL-736881)

    Google Scholar 

  • Evan AT, Dunion J, Foley JA, Heidinger AK, Velden CS (2006) New evidence for a relationship between Atlantic tropical cyclone activity and African dust outbreaks. Geophys Res Lett 33(19)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ezer T, Atkinson LP, Corlett WB, Blanco JL (2013) Gulf Stream’s induced sea level rise and variability along the US mid-Atlantic coast. J Geophys Res Oceans 118(2):685–697

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Flato G, Marotzke J, Abiodun B, Braconnot P, Chou SC, Collins W, Cox P, Driouech F, Emori S, Eyring V, Forest C, Gleckler P, Guilyardi E, Jakob C, Kattsov V, Reason C, Rummukainen M (2013) Evaluation of climate models. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds), Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 741–866

    Google Scholar 

  • Girvetz EH, Zganjar C, Raber GT, Maurer EP, Kareiva P, Lawler JJ (2009) Applied climate-change analysis: the climate wizard tool. PLoS One 4(12)

    Google Scholar 

  • Gornitz V (2007) Sea level rise, after the ice melted and today. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Jan 2007. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/. Accessed 27 May 2020

  • Greve P, Orlowsky B, Mueller B, Sheffield J, Reichstein M, Seneviratne SI (2014) Global assessment of trends in wetting and drying over land. Nat Geosci 7(10):716–721

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Grotch SL, MacCracken MC (1991) The use of general circulation models to predict regional climate change. J Clim 4:286–303

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen J, Fung I, Lacis A, Rind D, Lebedeff S, Ruedy R, Russell G, Stone P (1988) Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional model. J Geophys Res Atmos 93(D8):9341–9364

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hansen J, Sato M, Ruedy R (2012) Perception of climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci 109(37):E2415–E2423

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hartmann DL, Klein Tank AMG, Rusticucci M, Alexander LV, Brönnimann S, Charabi Y, Dentener FJ, Dlugokencky EJ, Easterling DR, Kaplan A, Soden BJ, Thorne PW, Wild M, Zhai PM (2013) Observations: atmosphere and surface. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooker J, Duveiller G, Cescatti A (2018) A global dataset of air temperature derived from satellite remote sensing and weather stations. Sci Data 5(1):1–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hostetler SW, Alder JR, Allan AM (2011) Dynamically downscaled climate simulations over North America: methods, evaluation and supporting documentation for users. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011–1238

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2000) In: Nakicenovic N, Swart R (eds) Emissions scenarios. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2007) Climate change 2007: synthesis report. In: Pachauri RK, Reisinger A (eds) Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, Geneva

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2014) Climate change 2014: synthesis report. In: Pachauri RK, Meyer LA (eds) Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, Geneva

    Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2019) Technical summary. In: Pörtner H-O, Roberts DC, Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Tignor M, Poloczanska E, Mintenbeck K, Alegría A, Nicolai M, Okem A, Petzold J, Rama B, Weyer NM (eds) IPCC special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate (In press)

    Google Scholar 

  • Knutson TR, Tuleya RE (2004) Impact of CO2-induced warming on simulated hurricane intensity and precipitation: sensitivity to the choice of climate model and convective parameterization. J Clim 17(18):3477–3495

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Lambeck K, Rouby H, Purcell A, Sun Y, Sambridge M (2014) Sea level and global ice volumes from the last glacial maximum to the holocene. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111(43):15296–15303

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Landsea CW, Harper BA, Hoarau K, Knaff JA (2006) Can we detect trends in extreme tropical cyclones? Science 313(5786):452–454

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mastrandrea MD, Field CB, Stocker TF, Edenhofer O, Ebi KL, Frame DJ, Held H, Kriegler E, Mach KJ, Matschoss PR, Plattner G-K, Yohe GW, Zwiers FW (2010). Guidance note for lead authors of the IPCC fifth assessment report on consistent treatment of uncertainties. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

    Google Scholar 

  • McGuffie K, Henderson-Sellers A (2005) A climate modelling primer, 3rd edn. John Wiley, Chichester

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mendelsohn R, Emanuel K, Chonabayashi S, Bakkensen L (2012) The impact of climate change on global tropical cyclone damage. Nat Clim Change 2(3):205

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Milly PC, Dunne KA (2016) Potential evapotranspiration and continental drying. Nat Clim Change 6(10):946–949

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Myhre G, Shindell D, Bréon F-M, Collins W, Fuglestvedt J, Huang J, Koch D, Lamarque J-F, Lee D, Mendoza B, Nakajima T, Robock A, Stephens G, Takemura T, & Zhang H (2013) Anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 659–740

    Google Scholar 

  • NASA (2020a) Global climate change. https://climate.nasa.gov/ Accessed 26 May 2020

  • NASA (2020b) Carbon dioxide. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/. Accessed 27 May 2020

  • Nerem RS, Beckley BD, Fasullo JT, Hamlington BD, Masters D, Mitchum GT (2018) Climate-change–driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era. Proc Natl Acad Sci 115(9):2022–2025

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • NESDIS (2018) A decade of global sea level measurements: Jason-2 marks tenth year in Orbit. NOAA. National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/decade-global-sea-level-measurements-jason-2-marks-tenth-year-orbit. Accessed 6 Feb 2020

  • NOAA (n.d.) Tides and currents. Relative sea level trend 8724580 Key West, Florida. https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8724580. Accessed 2 Feb 2020

  • Past Interglacials Working Group of Pages (2016) Interglacials of the last 800,000 years. Rev Geophys 54(1):162–219

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • PCDMI (n.d.) CMIP5—coupled model intercomparison project phase 5—overview. https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/mips/cmip5/. Accessed 27 May 2020

  • Peterson TC, Golubev VS, Groisman PY (1995) Evaporation losing its strength. Nature 377(6551):687–688

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pielke RA Jr, Landsea C, Mayfield M, Layer J, Pasch R (2005) Hurricanes and global warming. Bull Am Meteor Soc 86(11):1571–1576

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Powell JL (2015) Climate scientists virtually unanimous: anthropogenic global warming is true. Bull Sci Technol Soc 35(5–6):121–124

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roderick ML, Farquhar GD (2002) The cause of decreased pan evaporation over the past 50 years. Science 298(5597):1410–1411

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roderick ML, Rotstayn LD, Farquhar GD, Hobbins MT (2007) On the attribution of changing pan evaporation. Geophys Res Lett 34(17):L17403

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Sallenger AH, Doran KS, Howd PA (2012) Hotspot of accelerated sea-level rise on the Atlantic coast of North America. Nat Clim Change 2(12):884

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Sheffield J, Wood EF, Roderick ML (2012) Little change in global drought over the past 60 years. Nature 491(7424):435–438

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer RW, Christy JR (1990) Precise monitoring of global temperature trends from satellites. Science 247(4950):1558–1562

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer RW, Christy JR, Grody NC (1990) Global atmospheric temperature monitoring with satellite microwave measurements: method and results 1979–84. J Clim 3(10):1111–1128

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens B, Bony S (2013) What are climate models missing? Science 340:1053–1054

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor KE, Stouffer RJ, Meehl GA (2012) An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design. Bull Am Meteor Soc 93(4):485–498

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Trenberth K (2005) Uncertainty in hurricanes and global warming. Science 308:1753–1754

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • USGCRP (2019) Sea level rise. U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/global-sea-level-rise. Accessed 27 May 2020

  • USGS (n.d.) Regional and climate change. Visualization. http://regclim.coas.oregonstate.edu/visualization/gccv/. Accessed 27 May 2020

  • Vecchi GA, Soden BJ (2007) Effect of remote sea surface temperature change on tropical cyclone potential intensity. Nature 450(7172):1066–1070

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Weart S (2010) The development of general circulation models of climate. Stud Hist Philos Mod Phys 41:208–217

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webster PJ, Holland GJ, Curry JA, Chang HR (2005) Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity in a warming environment. Science 309(5742):1844–1846

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wilhite DA, Glantz MH (1985) Understanding the drought phenomenon: the role of definitions. Water Int 10(3):111–120

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WCRP (n.d.) WCRP Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip. Accessed 10 Feb 2020

  • Zou CZ, Goldberg MD, Hao X (2018) New generation of US satellite microwave sounder achieves high radiometric stability performance for reliable climate change detection. Sci Adv 4(10):eaau0049

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. WSP and Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL, USA

    Robert Maliva

Authors
  1. Robert Maliva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert Maliva .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Maliva, R. (2021). Historical Evidence for Anthropogenic Climate Change and Climate Modeling Basics. In: Climate Change and Groundwater: Planning and Adaptations for a Changing and Uncertain Future. Springer Hydrogeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66813-6_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation