Climate variability includes all the variations in the climate that last longer than individual weather events, whereas the termclimate change only refers to those variations that persist for a longer period of time, typically decades or more.Climate change may refer to any time in Earth's history, but the term is now commonly used to describe contemporary climate change, often popularly referred to as global warming. Since theIndustrial Revolution, the climate has increasingly been affected byhuman activities.[1]
Theclimate system receives nearly all of its energy from the sun and radiates energy toouter space. The balance of incoming and outgoing energy and the passage of the energy through the climate system isEarth's energy budget. When the incoming energy is greater than the outgoing energy, Earth's energy budget is positive and the climate system is warming. If more energy goes out, the energy budget is negative and Earth experiences cooling.
The energy moving through Earth's climate system finds expression in weather, varying on geographic scales and time. Long-term averages and variability of weather in a region constitute the region's climate. Such changes can be the result of "internal variability", when natural processes inherent to the various parts of the climate system alter the distribution of energy. Examples include variability in ocean basins such as thePacific decadal oscillation andAtlantic multidecadal oscillation. Climate variability can also result fromexternal forcing, when events outside of the climate system's components produce changes within the system. Examples include changes in solar output andvolcanism.
Climate variability has consequences for sea level changes, plant life, and mass extinctions; it also affects human societies.
Terminology
Climate variability is the term to describe variations in the mean state and other characteristics of climate (such as chances or possibility of extreme weather, etc.) "on all spatial and temporal scales beyond that of individual weather events." Some of the variability does not appear to be caused by known systems and occurs at seemingly random times. Such variability is calledrandom variability ornoise. On the other hand, periodic variability occurs relatively regularly and in distinct modes of variability or climate patterns.[2]
The termclimate change is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change. Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.[3]Global warming became the dominant popular term in 1988, but within scientific journals global warming refers to surface temperature increases while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasinggreenhouse gas levels affect.[4]
A related term,climatic change, was proposed by theWorld Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1966 to encompass all forms of climatic variability on time-scales longer than 10 years, but regardless of cause. During the 1970s, the term climate change replaced climatic change to focus on anthropogenic causes, as it became clear that human activities had a potential to drastically alter the climate.[5] Climate change was incorporated in the title of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and theUN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate change is now used as both a technical description of the process, as well as a noun used to describe the problem.[5]
Causes
On the broadest scale, the rate at which energy is received from theSun and the rate at which it is lost to space determine theequilibrium temperature and climate of Earth. This energy is distributed around the globe by winds, ocean currents,[6][7] and other mechanisms to affect the climates of different regions.[8]
Factors that can shape climate are calledclimate forcings or "forcing mechanisms".[9] These include processes such as variations insolar radiation, variations in the Earth's orbit, variations in thealbedo or reflectivity of the continents, atmosphere, and oceans,mountain-building andcontinental drift and changes ingreenhouse gas concentrations. External forcing can be either anthropogenic (e.g. increased emissions of greenhouse gases and dust) or natural (e.g., changes in solar output, the Earth's orbit, volcano eruptions).[10] There are a variety ofclimate change feedbacks that can either amplify or diminish the initial forcing. There are also keythresholds which when exceeded can produce rapid or irreversible change.
Some parts of the climate system, such as the oceans and ice caps, respond more slowly in reaction to climate forcings, while others respond more quickly. An example of fast change is the atmospheric cooling after a volcanic eruption, whenvolcanic ash reflects sunlight.Thermal expansion of ocean water after atmospheric warming is slow, and can take thousands of years. A combination is also possible, e.g., sudden loss ofalbedo in the Arctic Ocean as sea ice melts, followed by more gradual thermal expansion of the water.
Climate variability can also occur due to internal processes. Internal unforced processes often involve changes in the distribution of energy in the ocean and atmosphere, for instance, changes in thethermohaline circulation.
Internal variability
There is seasonal variability in how new high temperature records have outpaced new low temperature records.[11]
Climatic changes due to internal variability sometimes occur in cycles or oscillations. For other types of natural climatic change, we cannot predict when it happens; the change is calledrandom orstochastic.[12] From a climate perspective, the weather can be considered random.[13] If there are little clouds in a particular year, there is an energy imbalance and extra heat can be absorbed by the oceans. Due toclimate inertia, this signal can be 'stored' in the ocean and be expressed as variability on longer time scales than the original weather disturbances.[14] If the weather disturbances are completely random, occurring aswhite noise, the inertia of glaciers or oceans can transform this into climate changes where longer-duration oscillations are also larger oscillations, a phenomenon calledred noise.[15] Many climate changes have a random aspect and a cyclical aspect. This behavior is dubbedstochastic resonance.[15] Half of the2021 Nobel prize on physics was awarded for this work toKlaus Hasselmann jointly withSyukuro Manabe for related work onclimate modelling. WhileGiorgio Parisi who with collaborators introduced[16] the concept of stochastic resonance was awarded the other half but mainly for work on theoretical physics.
Ocean-atmosphere variability
The ocean and atmosphere can work together to spontaneously generate internal climate variability that can persist for years to decades at a time.[17][18] These variations can affect global average surface temperature by redistributing heat between the deep ocean and the atmosphere[19][20] and/or by altering the cloud/water vapor/sea ice distribution which can affect the total energy budget of the Earth.[21][22]
Oscillations and cycles
Colored bars show how El Niño years (red, regional warming) and La Niña years (blue, regional cooling) relate to overallglobal warming. TheEl Niño–Southern Oscillation has been linked to variability in longer-term global average temperature increase.
Aclimate oscillation orclimate cycle is any recurring cyclicaloscillation within global or regionalclimate. They arequasiperiodic (not perfectly periodic), so aFourier analysis of the data does not have sharp peaks in thespectrum. Many oscillations on different time-scales have been found or hypothesized:[23]
theEl Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – A large scale pattern of warmer (El Niño) and colder (La Niña) tropicalsea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean with worldwide effects. It is a self-sustaining oscillation, whose mechanisms are well-studied.[24] ENSO is the most prominent known source of inter-annual variability in weather and climate around the world. The cycle occurs every two to seven years, with El Niño lasting nine months to two years within the longer term cycle.[25] The cold tongue of the equatorial Pacific Ocean is not warming as fast as the rest of the ocean, due to increasedupwelling of cold waters off the west coast of South America.[26][27]
theMadden–Julian oscillation (MJO) – An eastward moving pattern of increased rainfall over the tropics with a period of 30 to 60 days, observed mainly over the Indian and Pacific Oceans.[28]
theQuasi-biennial oscillation – a well-understood oscillation in wind patterns in thestratosphere around the equator. Over a period of 28 months the dominant wind changes from easterly to westerly and back.[30]
thePacific decadal oscillation – The dominant pattern of sea surface variability in the North Pacific on a decadal scale. During a "warm", or "positive", phase, the west Pacific becomes cool and part of the eastern ocean warms; during a "cool" or "negative" phase, the opposite pattern occurs. It is thought not as a single phenomenon, but instead a combination of different physical processes.[31]
theAtlantic multidecadal oscillation – A pattern of variability in the North Atlantic of about 55 to 70 years, with effects on rainfall, droughts and hurricane frequency and intensity.[33]
theArctic oscillation (AO) andAntarctic oscillation (AAO) – The annular modes are naturally occurring, hemispheric-wide patterns of climate variability. On timescales of weeks to months they explain 20–30% of the variability in their respective hemispheres. The Northern Annular Mode orArctic oscillation (AO) in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Southern Annular Mode orAntarctic oscillation (AAO) in the southern hemisphere. The annular modes have a strong influence on the temperature and precipitation of mid-to-high latitude land masses, such as Europe and Australia, by altering the average paths of storms. The NAO can be considered a regional index of the AO/NAM.[35] They are defined as the firstEOF of sea level pressure or geopotential height from 20°N to 90°N (NAM) or 20°S to 90°S (SAM).
A schematic of modernthermohaline circulation. Tens of millions of years ago, continental-plate movement formed a land-free gap around Antarctica, allowing the formation of theACC, which keeps warm waters away from Antarctica.
The oceanic aspects of climate variability can generate variability on centennial timescales due to the ocean having hundreds of times more mass than in theatmosphere, and thus very highthermal inertia. For example, alterations to ocean processes such as thermohaline circulation play a key role in redistributing heat in the world's oceans.
Ocean currents transport a lot of energy from the warm tropical regions to the colder polar regions. Changes occurring around the last ice age (in technical terms, the lastglacial period) show that the circulation in theNorth Atlantic can change suddenly and substantially, leading to global climate changes, even though the total amount of energy coming into the climate system did not change much. These large changes may have come from so calledHeinrich events where internal instability of ice sheets caused huge ice bergs to be released into the ocean. When the ice sheet melts, the resulting water is very low in salt and cold, driving changes in circulation.[36]
glaciation 2.3 billion years ago triggered by the evolution of oxygenicphotosynthesis, which depleted the atmosphere of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and introduced free oxygen[40][41]
CO2 concentrations over the last 800,000 years as measured from ice cores (blue/green) and directly (black)
Whereasgreenhouse gases released by the biosphere is often seen as a feedback or internal climate process, greenhouse gases emitted from volcanoes are typically classified as external by climatologists.[50] Greenhouse gases, such as CO2, methane andnitrous oxide, heat the climate system by trapping infrared light. Volcanoes are also part of the extendedcarbon cycle. Over very long (geological) time periods, they release carbon dioxide from the Earth's crust and mantle, counteracting the uptake by sedimentary rocks and other geologicalcarbon dioxide sinks.
Since theIndustrial Revolution, humanity has been adding to greenhouse gases by emitting CO2 fromfossil fuel combustion, changingland use through deforestation, and has further altered the climate withaerosols (particulate matter in the atmosphere),[51] release of trace gases (e.g. nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, or methane).[52] Other factors, including land use,ozone depletion, animal husbandry (ruminant animals such ascattle producemethane[53]), anddeforestation, also play a role.[54]
TheUS Geological Survey estimates are that volcanic emissions are at a much lower level than the effects of current human activities, which generate 100–300 times the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by volcanoes.[55] The annual amount put out by human activities may be greater than the amount released bysupereruptions, the most recent of which was theToba eruption in Indonesia 74,000 years ago.[56]
Orbital variations
Milankovitch cycles from 800,000 years ago in the past to 800,000 years in the future.
Slight variations in Earth's motion lead to changes in the seasonal distribution of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface and how it is distributed across the globe. There is very little change to the area-averaged annually averaged sunshine; but there can be strong changes in the geographical and seasonal distribution. The three types ofkinematic change are variations in Earth'seccentricity, changes inthe tilt angle of Earth's axis of rotation, andprecession of Earth's axis. Combined, these produceMilankovitch cycles which affect climate and are notable for their correlation toglacial andinterglacial periods,[57] their correlation with the advance and retreat of theSahara,[57] and for theirappearance in thestratigraphic record.[58][59]
During the glacial cycles, there was a high correlation between CO2 concentrations and temperatures. Early studies indicated that CO2 concentrations lagged temperatures, but it has become clear that this is not always the case.[60] When ocean temperatures increase, thesolubility of CO2 decreases so that it is released from the ocean. The exchange of CO2 between the air and the ocean can also be impacted by further aspects of climatic change.[61] These and other self-reinforcing processes allow small changes in Earth's motion to have a large effect on climate.[60]
Solar output
Variations in solar activity during the last several centuries based on observations ofsunspots andberyllium isotopes. The period of extraordinarily few sunspots in the late 17th century was theMaunder minimum.
TheSun is the predominant source ofenergy input to the Earth'sclimate system. Other sources includegeothermal energy from the Earth's core, tidal energy from the Moon and heat from the decay of radioactive compounds. Both long term variations in solar intensity are known to affect global climate.[62]Solar output varies on shorter time scales, including the 11-yearsolar cycle[63] and longer-termmodulations.[64] Correlation between sunspots and climate and tenuous at best.[62]
Three to four billion years ago, the Sun emitted only 75% as much power as it does today.[65] If the atmospheric composition had been the same as today, liquid water should not have existed on the Earth's surface. However, there is evidence for the presence of water on the early Earth, in theHadean[66][67] andArchean[68][66] eons, leading to what is known as thefaint young Sun paradox.[69] Hypothesized solutions to this paradox include a vastly different atmosphere, with much higher concentrations of greenhouse gases than currently exist.[70] Over the following approximately 4 billion years, the energy output of the Sun increased. Over the next five billion years, the Sun's ultimate death as it becomes ared giant and then awhite dwarf will have large effects on climate, with the red giant phase possibly ending any life on Earth that survives until that time.[71]
Volcanism
In atmospheric temperature from 1979 to 2010, determined byMSUNASA satellites, effects appear fromaerosols released by major volcanic eruptions (El Chichón andPinatubo).El Niño is a separate event, from ocean variability.
Thevolcanic eruptions considered to be large enough to affect the Earth's climate on a scale of more than 1 year are the ones that inject over 100,000tons ofSO2 into thestratosphere.[72] This is due to the optical properties of SO2 and sulfate aerosols, which strongly absorb or scatter solar radiation, creating a global layer ofsulfuric acid haze.[73] On average, such eruptions occur several times per century, and cause cooling (by partially blocking the transmission of solar radiation to the Earth's surface) for a period of several years. Although volcanoes are technically part of the lithosphere, which itself is part of the climate system, the IPCC explicitly defines volcanism as an external forcing agent.[74]
At a larger scale—a few times every 50 million to 100 million years—the eruption oflarge igneous provinces brings large quantities ofigneous rock from themantle andlithosphere to the Earth's surface. Carbon dioxide in the rock is then released into the atmosphere.[78][79] Small eruptions, with injections of less than 0.1 Mt of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, affect the atmosphere only subtly, as temperature changes are comparable with natural variability. However, because smaller eruptions occur at a much higher frequency, they too significantly affect Earth's atmosphere.[72][80]
Over the course of millions of years, the motion of tectonic plates reconfigures global land and ocean areas and generates topography. This can affect both global and local patterns of climate and atmosphere-ocean circulation.[81]
The position of the continents determines the geometry of the oceans and therefore influences patterns of ocean circulation. The locations of the seas are important in controlling the transfer of heat and moisture across the globe, and therefore, in determining global climate. A recent example of tectonic control on ocean circulation is the formation of theIsthmus of Panama about 5 million years ago, which shut off direct mixing between theAtlantic andPacific Oceans. This strongly affected theocean dynamics of what is now theGulf Stream and may have led to Northern Hemisphere ice cover.[82][83] During theCarboniferous period, about 300 to 360 million years ago, plate tectonics may have triggered large-scale storage of carbon and increasedglaciation.[84] Geologic evidence points to a "megamonsoonal" circulation pattern during the time of thesupercontinentPangaea, and climate modeling suggests that the existence of the supercontinent was conducive to the establishment of monsoons.[85]
The size of continents is also important. Because of the stabilizing effect of the oceans on temperature, yearly temperature variations are generally lower in coastal areas than they are inland. A larger supercontinent will therefore have more area in which climate is strongly seasonal than will several smaller continents orislands.
Other mechanisms
It has been postulated thationized particles known ascosmic rays could impact cloud cover and thereby the climate. As the sun shields the Earth from these particles, changes in solar activity were hypothesized to influence climate indirectly as well. To test the hypothesis,CERN designed theCLOUD experiment, which showed the effect of cosmic rays is too weak to influence climate noticeably.[86][87]
Evidence exists that theChicxulub asteroid impact some 66 million years ago had severely affected the Earth's climate. Large quantities of sulfate aerosols were kicked up into the atmosphere, decreasing global temperatures by up to 26 °C and producing sub-freezing temperatures for a period of 3–16 years. The recovery time for this event took more than 30 years.[88] The large-scale use ofnuclear weapons has also been investigated for its impact on the climate. The hypothesis is that soot released by large-scale fires blocks a significant fraction of sunlight for as much as a year, leading to a sharp drop in temperatures for a few years. This possible event is described asnuclear winter.[89]
Humans' use of land impact how much sunlight the surface reflects and the concentration of dust. Cloud formation is not only influenced by how much water is in the air and the temperature, but also by the amount ofaerosols in the air such as dust.[90] Globally, more dust is available if there are many regions with dry soils, little vegetation and strong winds.[91]
Evidence and measurement of climate changes
Paleoclimatology is the study of changes in climate through the entire history of Earth. It uses a variety ofproxy methods from the Earth and life sciences to obtain data preserved within things such as rocks, sediments, ice sheets, tree rings, corals, shells, and microfossils. It then uses the records to determine the past states of the Earth's various climate regions and its atmospheric system. Direct measurements give a more complete overview of climate variability.
Direct measurements
Climate changes that occurred after the widespread deployment of measuring devices can be observed directly. Reasonably complete global records of surface temperature are available beginning from the mid-late 19th century. Further observations are derived indirectly from historical documents. Satellite cloud and precipitation data has been available since the 1970s.[92]
Historical climatology is the study of historical changes in climate and their effect on human history and development. The primary sources include written records such assagas,chronicles,maps andlocal history literature as well as pictorial representations such aspaintings,drawings and evenrock art. Climate variability in the recent past may be derived from changes in settlement and agricultural patterns.[93]Archaeological evidence,oral history andhistorical documents can offer insights into past changes in the climate. Changes in climate have been linked to the rise[94] and the collapse of various civilizations.[93]
Proxy measurements
Variations inCO2, temperature and dust from theVostok ice core over the last 450,000 years.
Various archives of past climate are present in rocks, trees and fossils. From these archives, indirect measures of climate, so-called proxies, can be derived. Quantification of climatological variation of precipitation in prior centuries and epochs is less complete but approximated using proxies such as marine sediments, ice cores, cave stalagmites, and tree rings.[95] Stress, too little precipitation or unsuitable temperatures, can alter the growth rate of trees, which allows scientists to infer climate trends by analyzing the growth rate of tree rings. This branch of science studying this calleddendroclimatology.[96] Glaciers leave behindmoraines that contain a wealth of material—including organic matter, quartz, and potassium that may be dated—recording the periods in which a glacier advanced and retreated.
Analysis of ice in cores drilled from anice sheet such as theAntarctic ice sheet, can be used to show a link between temperature and global sea level variations. The air trapped in bubbles in the ice can also reveal the CO2 variations of the atmosphere from the distant past, well before modern environmental influences. The study of these ice cores has been a significant indicator of the changes in CO2 over many millennia, and continues to provide valuable information about the differences between ancient and modern atmospheric conditions. The18O/16O ratio in calcite and ice core samplesused to deduce ocean temperature in the distant past is an example of a temperature proxy method.
The remnants of plants, and specifically pollen, are also used to study climatic change. Plant distributions vary under different climate conditions. Different groups of plants have pollen with distinctive shapes and surface textures, and since the outer surface of pollen is composed of a very resilient material, they resist decay. Changes in the type of pollen found in different layers of sediment indicate changes in plant communities. These changes are often a sign of a changing climate.[97][98] As an example, pollen studies have been used to track changing vegetation patterns throughout theQuaternary glaciations[99] and especially since thelast glacial maximum.[100] Remains ofbeetles are common in freshwater and land sediments. Different species of beetles tend to be found under different climatic conditions. Given the extensive lineage of beetles whose genetic makeup has not altered significantly over the millennia, knowledge of the present climatic range of the different species, and the age of the sediments in which remains are found, past climatic conditions may be inferred.[101]
Analysis and uncertainties
One difficulty in detecting climate cycles is that the Earth's climate has been changing in non-cyclic ways over most paleoclimatological timescales. Currently we are in a period ofanthropogenicglobal warming. In a larger timeframe, the Earth isemerging from the latest ice age, cooling from theHolocene climatic optimum and warming from the "Little Ice Age", which means that climate has been constantly changing over the last 15,000 years or so. During warm periods, temperature fluctuations are often of a lesser amplitude. ThePleistocene period, dominated by repeatedglaciations, developed out of more stable conditions in theMiocene andPliocene climate. Holocene climate has been relatively stable. All of these changes complicate the task of looking for cyclical behavior in the climate.
Positive feedback,negative feedback, andecological inertia from the land-ocean-atmosphere system often attenuate or reverse smaller effects, whether from orbital forcings, solar variations or changes in concentrations of greenhouse gases. Certain feedbacks involving processes such as clouds are also uncertain; forcontrails, naturalcirrus clouds, oceanicdimethyl sulfide and a land-based equivalent, competing theories exist concerning effects on climatic temperatures, for example contrasting theIris hypothesis andCLAW hypothesis.
Impacts
Life
Top:Arid ice age climateMiddle:Atlantic Period, warm and wetBottom: Potential vegetation in climate now if not for human effects like agriculture.[102]
Vegetation
A change in the type, distribution and coverage of vegetation may occur given a change in the climate. Some changes in climate may result in increased precipitation and warmth, resulting in improved plant growth and the subsequent sequestration of airborne CO2. Though an increase in CO2 may benefit plants, some factors can diminish this increase. If there is an environmental change such as drought, increased CO2 concentrations will not benefit the plant.[103] So even though climate change does increase CO2 emissions, plants will often not use this increase as other environmental stresses put pressure on them.[104] However, sequestration of CO2 is expected to affect the rate of many natural cycles likeplant litter decomposition rates.[105] A gradual increase in warmth in a region will lead to earlier flowering and fruiting times, driving a change in the timing of life cycles of dependent organisms. Conversely, cold will cause plant bio-cycles to lag.[106]
Larger, faster or more radical changes, however, may result in vegetation stress, rapid plant loss anddesertification in certain circumstances.[107][108][109] An example of this occurred during theCarboniferous Rainforest Collapse (CRC), an extinction event 300 million years ago. At this time vast rainforests covered the equatorial region of Europe and America. Climate change devastated these tropical rainforests, abruptly fragmenting the habitat into isolated 'islands' and causing the extinction of many plant and animal species.[107]
Wildlife
One of the most important ways animals can deal with climatic change is migration to warmer or colder regions.[110] On a longer timescale, evolution makes ecosystems including animals better adapted to a new climate.[111] Rapid or large climate change can causemass extinctions when creatures are stretched too far to be able to adapt.[112]
Humanity
Collapses of past civilizations such as theMaya may be related to cycles of precipitation, especially drought, that in this example also correlates to theWestern Hemisphere Warm Pool. Around 70 000 years ago theToba supervolcano eruption created an especially cold period during the ice age, leading to a possiblegenetic bottleneck in human populations.
Changes in the cryosphere
Glaciers and ice sheets
Glaciers are considered among the most sensitive indicators of a changing climate.[113] Their size is determined by amass balance between snow input and melt output. As temperatures increase, glaciers retreat unless snow precipitation increases to make up for the additional melt. Glaciers grow and shrink due both to natural variability and external forcings. Variability in temperature, precipitation and hydrology can strongly determine the evolution of a glacier in a particular season.
The most significant climate processes since the middle to latePliocene (approximately 3 million years ago) are the glacial andinterglacial cycles. The present interglacial period (theHolocene) has lasted about 11,700 years.[114] Shaped byorbital variations, responses such as the rise and fall ofcontinental ice sheets and significant sea-level changes helped create the climate. Other changes, includingHeinrich events,Dansgaard–Oeschger events and theYounger Dryas, however, illustrate how glacial variations may also influence climate without theorbital forcing.
Sea level change
During theLast Glacial Maximum, some 25,000 years ago, sea levels were roughly 130 m lower than today. The deglaciation afterwards was characterized by rapid sea level change.[115] In the earlyPliocene, global temperatures were 1–2˚C warmer than the present temperature, yet sea level was 15–25 meters higher than today.[116]
Sea ice
Sea ice plays an important role in Earth's climate as it affects the total amount of sunlight that is reflected away from the Earth.[117] In the past, the Earth's oceans have been almost entirely covered by sea ice on a number of occasions, when the Earth was in a so-calledSnowball Earth state,[118] and completely ice-free in periods of warm climate.[119] When there is a lot of sea ice present globally, especially in the tropics and subtropics, the climate ismore sensitive to forcings as theice–albedo feedback is very strong.[120]
Variousclimate forcings are typically in flux throughoutgeologic time, and some processes of the Earth's temperature may beself-regulating. For example, during theSnowball Earth period, large glacial ice sheets spanned to Earth's equator, covering nearly its entire surface, and very highalbedo created extremely low temperatures, while the accumulation of snow and ice likely removed carbon dioxide throughatmospheric deposition. However, the absence ofplant cover to absorb atmospheric CO2 emitted by volcanoes meant that the greenhouse gas could accumulate in the atmosphere. There was also an absence of exposed silicate rocks, which use CO2 when they undergo weathering. This created a warming that later melted the ice and brought Earth's temperature back up.
Paleo-eocene thermal maximum
Climate changes over the past 65 million years, using proxy data includingOxygen-18 ratios fromforaminifera.
ThePaleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a time period with more than 5–8 °C global average temperature rise across the event.[121] This climate event occurred at the time boundary of thePaleocene andEocene geologicalepochs.[122] During the event large amounts ofmethane was released, a potent greenhouse gas.[123] The PETM represents a "case study" for modern climate change as in the greenhouse gases were released in a geologically relatively short amount of time.[121] During the PETM, a mass extinction of organisms in the deep ocean took place.[124]
The Cenozoic
Throughout theCenozoic, multiple climate forcings led to warming and cooling of the atmosphere, which led to the early formation of theAntarctic ice sheet, subsequent melting, and its later reglaciation. The temperature changes occurred somewhat suddenly, at carbon dioxide concentrations of about 600–760 ppm and temperatures approximately 4 °C warmer than today. During the Pleistocene, cycles of glaciations and interglacials occurred on cycles of roughly 100,000 years, but may stay longer within an interglacial whenorbital eccentricity approaches zero, as during the current interglacial. Previous interglacials such as theEemian phase created temperatures higher than today, higher sea levels, and some partial melting of theWest Antarctic ice sheet.
Climatological temperatures substantially affect cloud cover and precipitation. At lower temperatures, air can hold less water vapour, which can lead to decreased precipitation.[125] During theLast Glacial Maximum of 18,000 years ago, thermal-drivenevaporation from the oceans onto continental landmasses was low, causing large areas of extreme desert, includingpolar deserts (cold but with low rates of cloud cover and precipitation).[102] In contrast, the world's climate was cloudier and wetter than today near the start of the warmAtlantic Period of 8000 years ago.[102]
The Holocene
Temperature change over the past 12 000 years, from various sources. The thick black curve is an average.
TheHolocene is characterized by a long-term cooling starting after theHolocene Optimum, when temperatures were probably only just below current temperatures (second decade of the 21st century),[126] and a strongAfrican Monsoon created grassland conditions in theSahara during theNeolithic Subpluvial. Since that time, severalcooling events have occurred, including:
Certain effects have occurred during these cycles. For example, during the Medieval Warm Period, theAmerican Midwest was in drought, including theSand Hills of Nebraska which were activesand dunes. Theblack death plague ofYersinia pestis also occurred during Medieval temperature fluctuations, and may be related to changing climates.
Solar activity may have contributed to part of the modern warming that peaked in the 1930s. However, solar cycles fail to account for warming observed since the 1980s to the present day.[citation needed] Events such as the opening of theNorthwest Passage and recent record low ice minima of the modernArctic shrinkage have not taken place for at least several centuries, as early explorers were all unable to make an Arctic crossing, even in summer. Shifts inbiomes and habitat ranges are also unprecedented, occurring at rates that do not coincide with known climate oscillations[citation needed].
As a consequence of humans emittinggreenhouse gases,global surface temperatures have started rising. Global warming is an aspect of modern climate change, a term that also includes the observed changes in precipitation, storm tracks and cloudiness. As a consequence, glaciers worldwide have been found to beshrinking significantly.[127][128] Land ice sheets in bothAntarctica andGreenland have been losing mass since 2002 and have seen an acceleration of ice mass loss since 2009.[129] Global sea levels have been rising as a consequence of thermal expansion and ice melt. The decline in Arctic sea ice, both in extent and thickness, over the last several decades is further evidence for rapid climate change.[130]
Variability between regions
Examples of regional climate variability
Land-ocean. Surface air temperatures over land masses have been increasing faster than those over the ocean,[131] the ocean absorbing about 90% of excess heat.[132]
Hemispheres. The Hemispheres' average temperature changes[133] have diverged because of the North's greater percentage of landmass, and due to global ocean currents.[134]
Latitude bands. Three latitude bands that respectively cover 30, 40 and 30 percent of the global surface area show mutually distinct temperature growth patterns in recent decades.[135]
Altitude. Awarming stripes graphic (blues denote cool,reds denote warm) shows how the greenhouse effect traps heat in the lower atmosphere and oceans, so that the upper atmosphere, receiving less reflected energy, cools.[136][137]
Global versus regional. For geographical and statistical reasons, larger year-to-year variations are expected[138] for localized geographic regions (e.g., the Caribbean) than for global averages.[139]
Relative deviation. Though northern America has warmed more than its tropics, the tropics have more clearly departed from normal historical variability (colored bands: 1σ, 2σ standard deviations).[140]
Global warming has varied substantially by latitude, with the northernmost latitude zones experiencing the largest temperature increases.
In addition to global climate variability and global climate change over time, numerous climatic variations occur contemporaneously across different physical regions.
The oceans' absorption of about 90% of excess heat has helped to cause land surface temperatures to grow more rapidly than sea surface temperatures.[132] The Northern Hemisphere, having a larger landmass-to-ocean ratio than the Southern Hemisphere, shows greater average temperature increases.[134] Variations across different latitude bands also reflect this divergence in average temperature increase, with the temperature increase of northernextratropics exceeding that of the tropics, which in turn exceeds that of the southern extratropics.[135]
Upper regions of the atmosphere have been cooling contemporaneously with a warming in the lower atmosphere, confirming the action of the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion.[137]
Observed regional climatic variations confirm predictions concerning ongoing changes, for example, by contrasting (smoother) year-to-year global variations with (more volatile) year-to-year variations in localized regions.[138] Conversely, comparing different regions' warming patterns to their respective historical variabilities, allows the raw magnitudes of temperature changes to be placed in the perspective of what is normal variability for each region.[140]
Regional variability observations permit study of regionalizedclimate tipping points such as rainforest loss, ice sheet and sea ice melt, and permafrost thawing.[141] Such distinctions underlie research into a possibleglobal cascade of tipping points.[141]
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^abHawkins, Ed (12 September 2019)."Atmospheric temperature trends".Climate Lab Book.Archived from the original on 12 September 2019. (Higher-altitude cooling differences attributed to ozone depletion and greenhouse gas increases; spikes occurred with volcanic eruptions of 1982–83 (El Chichón) and 1991–92 (Pinatubo).)
^abHawkins, Ed (10 March 2020)."From the familiar to the unknown".Climate Lab Book (professional blog).Archived from the original on 23 April 2020. (Direct link to image; Hawkins creditsBerkeley Earth for data.) "The emergence of observed temperature changes over both land and ocean is clearest in tropical regions, in contrast to the regions of largest change which are in the northern extra-tropics. As an illustration, northern America has warmed more than tropical America, but the changes in the tropics are more apparent and have more clearly emerged from the range of historical variability. The year-to-year variations in the higher latitudes have made it harder to distinguish the long-term changes."
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