DOI: 10.1126/science.1090228. Modern Global Climate Change

10.1126/science.1090228

Crossref journal-article

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Science (221)

Abstract

Modern climate change is dominated by human influences, which are now large enough to exceed the bounds of natural variability. The main source of global climate change is human-induced changes in atmospheric composition. These perturbations primarily result from emissions associated with energy use, but on local and regional scales, urbanization and land use changes are also important. Although there has been progress in monitoring and understanding climate change, there remain many scientific, technical, and institutional impediments to precisely planning for, adapting to, and mitigating the effects of climate change. There is still considerable uncertainty about the rates of change that can be expected, but it is clear that these changes will be increasingly manifested in important and tangible ways, such as changes in extremes of temperature and precipitation, decreases in seasonal and perennial snow and ice extent, and sea level rise. Anthropogenic climate change is now likely to continue for many centuries. We are venturing into the unknown with climate, and its associated impacts could be quite disruptive.

Bibliography

Karl, T. R., & Trenberth, K. E. (2003). Modern Global Climate Change. Science, 302(5651), 1719â1723.

Authors 2

Thomas R. Karl (first)
Kevin E. Trenberth (additional)

References 39 Referenced 1,546

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Global temperatures are available from www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2002/ann/ann02.html.
K. E. Trenberth A. Dai R. M. Rasmussen D. B. Parsons Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84 1205 (2003) (available at www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/adai/papers/rainChBamsR.pdf). (10.1175/BAMS-84-9-1205)
The Clausius Clapeyron equation governs the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere which increases by ∼7% per degree Celsius increase in temperature ( 13 ).
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J. Coakley Jr., C. D. Walsh, J. Atmos. Sci.59, 668 (2002). (10.1175/1520-0469(2002)059<0668:LTTAIR>2.0.CO;2) / J. Atmos. Sci. (2002)
J. Coakley Jr. personal communication.
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We thank A. Leetmaa J. Hurrell J. Mahlman and R. Cicerone for helpful comments and J. Enloe for providing the calculations for Fig. 2. This article reflects the views of the authors and does not reflect government policy. The National Climatic Data Center is part of NOAA's Satellite and Information Services. The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the NSF.

Dates

Type	When
Created	21 years, 8 months ago (Dec. 4, 2003, 5:22 p.m.)
Deposited	1 year, 7 months ago (Jan. 9, 2024, 9:46 p.m.)
Indexed	1 day, 10 hours ago (Sept. 3, 2025, 7:15 a.m.)
Issued	21 years, 8 months ago (Dec. 5, 2003)
Published	21 years, 8 months ago (Dec. 5, 2003)
Published Print	21 years, 8 months ago (Dec. 5, 2003)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Karl_2003, title={Modern Global Climate Change}, volume={302}, ISSN={1095-9203}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1090228}, DOI={10.1126/science.1090228}, number={5651}, journal={Science}, publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)}, author={Karl, Thomas R. and Trenberth, Kevin E.}, year={2003}, month=dec, pages={1719–1723} }

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