On the Emergence of Human Influence on Surface Air Temperature Changes Over India
Human activities in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and aerosols resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels have been shown to have affected the temperature of the Earth on global and continental scales. The surface air temperature (TAS) over India has also been observed to be increasing over the last 100 years. Understanding the underlying causes of regional climate change over India can help in developing appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies. Differentiating signals of externally forced climate changes from the noise of natural internal variability generally becomes more difficult as spatial scale reduces. Therefore detecting and attributing the influence of external forcings such as GHGs and aerosols is harder at local and regional scales. In this study, we applied a detection and attribution (D&A) method to study annual and seasonal mean TAS over the Indian region. We found that the observed warming over India from 1906 to 2005 cannot be explained by natural climate variability alone. We found that the warming is largely driven by the increase in GHGs, and partially offset by regional anthropogenic emissions of aerosols. These results were confirmed for the shorter 1956–2005 period, but results were sensitive to the choice of observational data set. Furthermore, the changes cannot be explained by internal climate variability or natural external forcings alone, but are compatible with the responses to combined anthropogenic GHG and aerosol forcings.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- OSTI ID:
- 1827509
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-JRNL--818763; 1029536
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Journal Issue: 18 Vol. 126; ISSN 2169-897X
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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