Can the Warming of the 20th Century be Explained by Natural Variability?
Figure 5. Temperature changes relative to the corresponding average for 1901-1950 (°C) from decade to decade from 1906 to 2005 over the Earth’s continents, as well as the entire globe, global land area and the global ocean (lower graphs). The black line indicates observed temperature change, while the colored bands show the combined range covered by 90% of recent model simulations. Red indicates simulations that include natural and human factors, while blue indicates simulations that include only natural factors. Dashed black lines indicate decades and continental regions for which there are substantially fewer observations. Detailed descriptions of this figure and the methodology used in its production are given in the Supplementary Material, Appendix 9.C of the IPCC AR4. (Source: IPCC 2007) It is very unlikely that the 20th-century warming can be explained by natural causes. The late 20th century has been unusually warm. Palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the second half of the
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- Can the observed changes be explained by natural variability, including changes in solar output?
