Establishing the Scientific Consensus on

Climate Change
Week 6: Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

1. Describe the history of the establishment of the scientific consensus on climate change including
the role played by the IPCC;

2. Articulate the difference between weather and climate, and between the greenhouse effect and
climate change;

3. Outline how proxy methods used in the reconstruction of past temperatures;

4. Recognise the difference between the public perception of the scientific consensus on climate
change and that of the scientific community; and,

5. Explain how the scientific consensus on climate change was established.

Part I: Climate Change and the Scientific Consensus

https://youtu.be/dxzbdqtXF2M

1 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

From weather to climate change

In the week 5 lecture, I discussed the greenhouse effect and global warming and indeed I also gave
definitions for what we mean by these terms. Another term that I used was climate change. However, I
didn’t define what I meant by climate change, and I think it is important that we describe what we mean
by this term.

Before we define the term climate change though, we need to know what is climate? In answering this
question, it is worth contrasting climate with weather. Weather can be thought of as a combination of
temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility, and wind, that we might experience at a
particular location in the short-term. Weather reflects the short-term conditions of the atmosphere.
Climate, on the other hand, describes the typical weather conditions in an entire region for a very long
time. One way of thinking about this difference is that climate is what we expect, and weather is what
we get.

So, if climate is the average weather in a region over many years, climate change is a shift i n those
average conditions. In a sense then, climate change includes both the global warming driven by human -
induced emissions of greenhouse gases, and the resulting large -scale shifts in weather patterns.
However, I believe it is useful to think of global warming as being the cause, and climate change as being
the effect.

Scientific consensus on climate change

2 - IPCC (2021) Cl i mate Change 2021: The Phys ical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Today, there is a scientific consensus about climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, or IPCC, published its Sixth Assessment Report in August 2021. In that report, it is noted that
temperatures have risen by more than 1°C since the 1850–1900 global average, and that it is
“unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land ” (IPCC, 2021, p. 6). It
describes the ways in which Earth’s climate has changed due to human activity as “unprecedented” in
the previous hundreds of thousands of years (IPCC, 2021, p. 8), with some of the changes as now being
inevitable and “irreversible” (IPCC, 2021, p. 29). This is the current scientific consensus.
References

IPCC (2021) Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the
Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Arguing from authority

When I describe the scientific consensus, some of you might be feeling uncomfortable. Am I arguing that
you should accept climate change is real because there is a scientific consensus? Is this an argument
from authority? It was no less than Galileo Galilei 1 (1564–1642) who stated that, “In questions of
science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual” (Galilei,
1632).

References

Galilei, G. (1632). Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Florence: Giovanni Battista Landini.

Colloquially, when we talk about consensus we mean a general agreement of opinion, but the scientific
method argues for an objective framework. In science, facts or observations are explained by a
hypothesis, which can then be tested and retested until it is refuted.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei
As scientists gather more observations, they will build off one explanation and add details to complete
the picture. Eventually, a group of hypotheses might be integrated and generalised into a scientific
theory, a scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena.

Scientific consensus is achieved when the great majority of scientists of a given field agree upon a
position based on a large amount of evidence. Consensus is not just a general agreement, but is
dependent on the expertise of the scientists in question and is based on the accumulation and
verification of evidence.

But as Galileo proved, a scientific consensus can shift. Scientists are human and science i s a human
endeavour.

We are not saying that climate change has happened and is happening because there is a scientific
consensus, we are saying that climate change is real because very careful measurements, confirmed by
many scientists, have shown that it is happening.

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Part II: History of a Developing Consensus

https://youtu.be/aICT4Moo7IE

3 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

A good thing?
When was the scientific consensus on climate change established? And how was it established? The rest
of this lecture will address these two questions.

We will start with the first question. We touched on the history of climate change research in the last
lecture, but this was the work of individual scientists or small groups of scientists. This does not
represent consensus. To build a scientific consensus, we need a significant number of scientists working
on the problem, making measurements, developing conceptual and mathematical models, verifying
each other’s work. You will recall from the last lecture that the first mathematical model to predict the
effect on global temperature of increasing carbon dioxide was due to Svante Arrhenius. This had built
upon the conceptual work of Joseph Fourier, and the experimental analysis of John Tyndall and Eunice
Foote. Arrhenius wasn’t concerned about his predictions, perhaps because he lived in the cold climes of
Sweden; he viewed the increased temperatures as being a good thing.

In the pictures above, you will notice that an image of Eunice Foote is absent. This is because there are
no known images of Eunice Foote. Despite the importance of her work, capturing her image was not as
highly valued as it clearly had been for her male counterparts.

Concern about global warming

4 - Callendar, G. S. (1938) The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature, Qua rterly Journal of the
Roya l Meteorological Society. 64(275): 223–240.

Concern about global warming was first voiced by Guy Callendar. By 1938, Callendar was convinced that
nearly all carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuel combustion had remained in the atmosphere and
suggested that the increase in carbon dioxide may account for the observed slight rise of average
temperature in northern latitudes in the previous 50 years. With war breaking out in Europe , Callendar
wasn’t able to continue his research and little further work was done for some 20 years. One reason
why others didn’t continue the work of Callendar, even after the war, is because there was an important
uncertainty around water vapour. Scientists at the time agreed that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse
gas and that if you increased atmospheric concentrations it might affect the climate, but they argued
that water vapour is a greenhouse gas and that there is so much more water vapour than carbon
dioxide. Scientists were sceptical that small increases in carbon dioxide could have a big effect.
Atmospheric windows

5 - Figure showing absorptions bands in the Earth's atmosphere created by greenhouse gases and the resulting effects on
transmitted radiation (CC BY-SA 3.02)

This scepticism is still present today in the arguments proffered by many climate change deniers.
However, we can answer this scepticism using a figure we presented in the last lecture. This figure
shows the atmospheric absorption due to different gases. You can see that water vapour and carbon
dioxide do not absorb at the same wavelengths. Importantly there are wavelengths at which water
vapour absorbs very little, but carbon dioxide absorbs greatly. Increases in carbon dioxide will thus
significantly increase the absorption of infra-red radiation at these wavelengths and ultimately affect
Earth surface temperatures. So water vapour will not overwhelm the absorption due to carbon dioxide.

On the need for measurements of CO₂

6 - Revelle, R., and Suess, H. E. (1957) Carbon dioxide exchange between atmosphere and ocean and the question of an increase
of atmospheric CO2 during the past decades, Tel lus. 9(1): 18–27.

Among the first to recognise that there was a need to return to the work of Callendar were Roger
Revelle3 (1909–1991) and Hans Suess4 (1909–1993). In 1957, they published an influential paper that
recognised the importance of studying the Callendar effect, but further recognised the inadequacy of
current data. They stated that, “Present data on the total amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere, on the rates
and mechanisms of exchange, …are inadequate for accurate measurement of future changes in

2 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Revelle
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Suess
atmospheric CO₂”. They pushed for such measurements to be an integral part of the scientific project for
the International Geophysical Year5 .

International Geophysical Year

7 - Official emblem of the International Geophysical Year (public domain 6)

The International Geophysical Year that lasted from 1 July 1957 until the end of 1958 was crucial in
bringing together scientists from across the globe to study many issues of geophysical concern, including
climate change. It was as part of the International Geophysical Year that Charles Keeling received the
funding, pushed for by Revelle and Suess, to measure carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

The image above shows a 3¢ U.S. stamp commemorating the International Geographical Year.
Achievements during this project included advancements in plate tectonic knowledge, the discovery of
the Van Allen radiation belt, as well as the launch of the first artificial satellites – Sputnik 1 and 2 by the
Soviet Union and Explorer 1 by the United States.

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Geophysical_Year
6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Geophysical_Year#/media/File:Igylogo.jpg
 8 - 3c International Geophysical Year single from the Smithsonian Institute (fair use 7)

Only in Hawaii

9 - Pales, J. C., and Keeling, C. D. (1965) The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in Hawaii, Journal of Geophysical
Res earch. 70(24): 6053–6076.

The results from Mauna Loa, now referred to as the Keeling curve, showed that instruments had the
sensitivity to measure accurately small changes in the CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere. Keeling’s
data showed that between 1958 and 1965, CO₂ concentrations had risen by some 1% or 3 parts per
million by volume (or ppmv). These data were greatly concerning to the scientific community.

7 https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:npm_1980.2493.5229?q=guid%3A"ark%3A%2F65665%2Fhm8b

f0102ea58e44f54b11a7bef8b0f69b3"&record=1&hlterm=guid%3A%26quot%3Bark%3A%2F656 65%2Fhm8bf0102e
a58e44f54b11a7bef8b0f69b3%26quot%3B
President’s Science Advisory Committee

10 - President’s Science Advisory Committee (1965) Res toring the Quality of our Environment. Washington D.C.: The White
House.

Revelle and Keeling were asked to chair the President’s Science Advisory Committee that published the
report, Restoring the Quality of our Environment, that we mentioned in the last lecture. In that report,
the authors warned that, “By the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO₂ in our atmosphere than at
present [and] this will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes
in climate…could occur."

Informing public policy

 11 - Photograph of Roger Revelle shaking hands with President Lyndon B. Johnson from the Roger Revelle Papers, Special
Collections & Archives, University of California, San Diego (fair use 8)

Responding to this report, President Lyndon Johnson declared in a special message to the U.S. Congress,
again in 1965, that, “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale
through … a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels”. Here, the U.S. President
was reporting the scientific consensus from his Science Advisory Committee. This is one of the important
roles that scientific consensus plays in society; it helps to inform public policy. And indeed in the 1970s
in the U.S. the impact of rising carbon dioxide on climate was informing national policy in terms of
energy, national security and the economy.

Achieving consensus

12 - Photograph of the United States National Academy of Sciences building by Túrelio (CC BY-SA 2.59)

By the end of the 1970s, in an evaluation of the evidence for CO₂-induced climate change, the National
Academy of Sciences 10 , the premier science academy in the U.S. whose membership is considered one
of the highest professional honours, released a report that stated,

8 https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/photos/2015/feb/02/20226/
9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academy_of_Sciences#/media/File:NationalAcademySciences_07110011.

jpg
10 http://www.nasonline.org/
“A plethora of studies from diverse sources indicates a consensus that climate changes will result from
man’s combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land use.” (National Academy of Sciences, 1979)

The latter primarily due to deforestation and changes in agricultural practice. This was an early
description of the state of our understanding of climate change and described this understanding as
being the consensus of scientists working in this field. This was a consensus not just of the concept ual
understanding by which carbon dioxide influences Earth surface temperature, but it was a consensus of
expectation: that if we continue to burn fossil fuels, then climate change, including increased Earth
surface temperatures, will result.

References

National Academy of Sciences Archive (1979) An Evaluation of the Evidence for CO₂-induced Climate
Change. Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Climate Research Board, Study Group on
Carbon Dioxide.

So, have we identified when the scientific consensus on climate change was established? Well, yes and
no. Yes, we had established a consensus that burning fossil fuels will lead to climate change, but no, in
the sense, that there was not a consensus about when this climate change will happen.

Identifying this timeline would be crucial and indeed controversial.

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Part III: Not a Question of If, a Question of When

https://youtu.be/R4iWSNmR4jQ

13 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

Beyond natural climate sensitivity
So, the scientific community had established a consensus that burning fossil fuels will lead to climate
change, but there was a lack of consensus for when we would see climate change.

Establishing this consensus, in part to drive public policy to mitigate climate change, was crucial,
because the scientific community recognised that the impact on society would be profound. So,
scientists set about determining when these changes would be likely to occur. Most scientists at the
time thought that changes would not begin to become detectable until the 21st century.

14 - Hansen, J., Fung, I., Lacis, A., Rind, D., Lebedeff, S., Ruedy, R., and Russell, G. (1988) Global climate changes as forecast by
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Journa l of Geophysical Research. 93(D8): 9341–9364.

Determining when climate change would be detectable required sophisticated climate models:
mathematical descriptions of the climate programmed into computer models. These models coupled
atmosphere and oceans and were forced by changing amounts of greenhouse gases both known and
predicted. The predicted changes gave rise to different future scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions.
The key to knowing when climate change would be detectable was estimating the natural climate
variability. In 1988, James Hansen and co-workers published a seminal paper in which they provided the
first estimate of this variability. Hansen used observed surface temperatures to argue that this variability
in global average temperature was about 0.13°C such that an observed rise of about 0.4°C in the global
average would give a 99% confidence that global warming had been observed. He argued that this
would “constitute convincing evidence of a cause and effect relationship, i.e., a ‘smoking gun’”. He
further found that his model results showed a similar variability which gave credence to the model’s
predictions of climate change.

“It’s happening now”

 15 - Front page of The New York Times on 24 June 1988 (fair use 11)

Although Hansen’s 1988 paper predicted that this 0.4°C threshold would likely be witnessed within a
few years in the 1990s, Hansen testified before the U.S. Congress that global warming was “happening
now”. This emergent recognition that climate change was not some abstract phenomenon that might
materialise in the 21st century, but an observed fact happening now, at least in the opinion of Hansen,
was quickly followed by further studies conducted by other scientists using different climate models.
These studies needed to be systematically evaluated, and in 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, or IPCC, was formed to do exactly that.

IPCC first assessment report

16 - IPCC (1990) Cl i mate Cha nge: The IPCC Sci entific Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The IPCC is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations mandated to provide objective scientific
information relevant to understanding human-induced climate change, its natural, political, and
economic impacts and risks, and possible response options. It published its First Assessment Report in
1990 in which they stated, “global mean surface air temperature has increased by 0.3 to 0.6°C over the
last 100 years”. They further noted that “The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions
of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability”.

11 https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global -warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html
IPCC second assessment report

17 - IPCC (1995) Cl i mate Cha nge 1995: The Sci ence of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group I to the Second
As s essment Report of the Intergovernmental Pa nel on Cl imate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

However, in their Second Assessment Report published in 1995, the IPCC noted that, “The balance of
evidence suggests a discernible human impact on global climate”. In the half decade between the two
reports, the scientific consensus had shifted from an understanding that the greenhouse effect is well
understood, greenhouse gases are increasing (due largely to human activity), and therefore should lead
to significant global warming (though lack of understanding limited specific regional predictions), to a
greater understanding (despite continuing uncertainties) that global warming continues and is most
likely due to human activity.
IPCC third assessment report

18 - IPCC (2001) Cl i mate Cha nge 2001: The Sci entific Basis. Contribution o f Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

In the Third Assessment Report published in 2001, the IPCC stated that, “Human activities…are
modifying the concentrations of atmospheric constituents…that absorb or scatter radiant energy. [M]ost
of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to an increase in greenhouse
gas concentrations.”

In these assessment reports, the systematic review of the scientific literature revealed that the scientific
consensus was that human-induced climate change through burning fossil fuels was being identified in
the observational record. It does seem strange that following the Third Assessment Report doubt and
scepticism of this scientific consensus arose in the public arena. How that doubt emerged will be the
subject of the next lecture, but let’s consider the changing public perception in the U.S.
Gallup environment poll

19 - Table from the Gallup environmental poll (fair use 12)

The Gallup environment poll showed that in 1997 only 48% of the U.S. public believed that “most
scientists believe that global warming is occurring”. However, this figure rose sharply such that some
61% of the U.S. public believed this by 2001. This number rose still further to 65% by 2006 where it
stayed in 2008, but dropped dramatically to 52% by 2010. The number in 2021 is still only 68%.

I would argue that this poll is a measure of the U.S. public’s perception of the scientific consensus
around climate change. Is this reflected in the published, peer-reviewed scientific literature?

Consensus in the scientific literature

12 https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx
 20 - Images show the percentage of scientific consensus in the climate change literature from four different analyses (CC BY
3.013) and the level of consensus in the scientific community (CC BY 3.0 14)

The first attempt to determine the level of scientific consensus in the published, peer-reviewed scientific
literature was conducted in 2004 by Naomi Oreskes, the co-author of the book ‘Merchants of Doubt’.
Oreskes found that in the 928 papers published in the 10 years between 1993 and 2003 that talked
about global warming not one rejected the scientific consensus. Indeed in a later study of the scientific
literature by John Cook and co-authors in 2013, that in a survey of 11,944 abstracts from peer-reviewed
journals 97.1% agreed with the scientific consensus that human-induced climate change is real and
happening.

There is a disconnect between the public perception of the level of consensus present among scientists
studying climate change and the consensus among scientists themselves. This scientific consensus is
represented in the reports of the IPCC and is the position of e very national and international scientific
body.

It is always possible that the scientific consensus might be wrong. If the history of science has taught us
anything, it is humility! Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are
ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The
question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the
reality of human-induced climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this
clear. Doing nothing is not an option!

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Part IV: Temperatures Rising

https://youtu.be/AcNjasMj0k8

13 https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=242
14 https://skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=19
 21 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

Questions to be answered
We have established that there is a scientific consensus that human-induced climate change is
happening, but we need to address the question of how this was established. In this, I mean what was it
that convinced the scientific community to take such a consensus position? What are the observational
data and computer modelling that is so persuasive?

There are a number of questions that need to be answered:

• First, does the observational record show that average global temperatures are rising?

• Second, is the temperature rise unusual?

• Third, are atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations also increasing?

• Fourth, is the rise in carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels?

• And finally, do we understand human-induced climate change?

Instrumental temperature record

22 - National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) insignia (public domain 15)

15 https://www.nasa.gov/sites/all/themes/custom/nasatwo/images/nasa -logo.svg
 23 - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) logo (public domain 16)

24 - UK Meteorological Office logo (fair use under Crown Copyright17)

16 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NOAA_logo.svg
17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Met_Office#/media/File:Met_Office.svg
 25 - Japan Meteorological Agency (fair use 18)

Let’s consider the instrumental average global surface temperature record. The first issue that we are
faced with when looking at the instrumental record is which instrumental record. There are four major
keepers of records on global temperature. From the United States, there are the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration 19 (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration20 (NOAA)
datasets, but there are also datasets from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office 21 (UK Met Office)
and the Japan Meteorological Agency 22 (JMA).

18 https://www.jma.go.jp/bosai/common/image/logo_white.svg
19 https://www.nasa.gov/
20 https://www.noaa.gov/
21 https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
22 https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/indexe.html
 26 - Correlation of instrumental temperature datasets from various sources (CC BY-SA 4.023)

In general, the datasets agree, but there are small differences as illustrated in this figure. Note that a
fifth dataset from Berkeley Earth 24 is also included. These datasets use the 1951–1980 period as the
baseline for temperature change. The average pairwise correlation between the five datasets illustrated
here is 99.04%, but why don’t the five datasets agree perfectly?

The answer to this question lies in the nature of the sources of the data used in these constructions. The
data used in these constructions are collected at thousands of meteorological stations, buoys and ships
around the globe. The longest-running temperature record is the Central England temperature25 data
series, which starts in 1659. However, the longest-running quasi-global record starts in 1850.

Although all four major datasets have strong similarities in how they track and analyse temperatures,
there are subtle differences. The NASA record tends to run slightly higher than the Japanese record,
while the United Kingdom and NOAA records are usually in the middle.

Global weather stations

27 - Map of temperature station locations with record lengths indicated by colouring (CC BY-SA 3.026)

There are good reasons for these differences, small as they are. Getting an accurate measurement of air
temperature across the entire planet is not simple. Ideally, scientists would like to have thousands of
standardised weather stations spaced evenly all around the Earth’s surface. The trouble is that while
there are plenty of weather stations on land, there are some pretty big gaps over the oceans, the polar
regions, and even parts of Africa and South America. You can see the global climate network of
temperature stations here coloured by the length of station record.

The four research groups mentioned above deal with those gaps in slightly different ways. The Japanese
group leaves areas without plenty of temperature stations out of their analysis, so its analysis covers
about 85% of the globe. The United Kingdom met office makes similar choices, meaning its record
covers about 86% of the Earth’s surface. NOAA takes a different approach to the gaps, using nearby

23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record#/media/File:20200 324_Global_average_tempe

rature_-_NASA-GISS_HadCrut_NO AA_Japan_BerkeleyE.svg
24 http://berkeleyearth.org/
25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature
26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Historical_Climatology_Network#/media/File:GHCN_Temperature_Stations

.png
stations to interpolate temperatures in some areas that lack stations, giving the NOAA analysis 93%
coverage of the globe. The group at NASA interpolates even more aggressively—areas with gaps are
interpolated from the nearest station up to 1,200 kilometres away—and offers 99% coverage.

Beyond these issues of coverage, the surface temperature record also goes through a se ries of
adjustments to correct for issues, such as missing data, changes in instrumentation, movement of
stations, and human or technical error. This process is known as homogenisation and, despite being a
well-understood scientific practice, has been used by some climate-sceptic commentators as evidence
that scientists are “fiddling” the data to overstate the amount of warming we’ve seen.

Why not satellites

28 - Artist impression of satellite in space over the Earth's surface (fair use under Crown Copyright27)

You might argue that we have satellite data, so why don’t we use that? Surely it would avoid these
issues? The first issue is that satellite data only goes back to 1979. The second issue is that raw satellite
data has to go through a far more extensive “adjustment” process. Satellites do not directly measure
temperatures, and are subject to large systemic biases due to orbital decay, diurnal sampling drifts,
changes in the satellite used (there have been 13 or so different satellites since 1979). Correcting for
these biases is not straightforward, and different choices in correction parameters can lead to different
trends during the period from 1979 to the present day.

So those are some of the technical issues in constructing the instrumental average global surface
temperatures and why we rely on a surface network of measurements.

Berkeley Earth temperature record

27 https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/gallery/metofficegovuk/hero-images/advice/space/satellite.jpg
 29 - Berkeley Earth Global Temperature Report for 2020 (fair use 28)

So has there been a temperature rise since pre-industrial times? Well the figure we showed previously
had as a baseline the 1951–1980 average and showed a temperature anomaly of between 0.75 and 1°C
depending on the dataset. Arguably the effect of industrialisation is already present in the baseline
average. If instead we use the 1850–1900 period as a proxy for pre-industrial temperatures, then the
temperature rise is even greater. The Berkeley Earth dataset here gives a temperature rise a little in
excess of 1.2°C. The IPCC in the Sixth Assessment Report reports this temperature rise as 1.1°C.

The observational temperature record does appear to confirm that global average temperatures are
increasing.

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Part V: Unprecedented

https://youtu.be/gKEiETUnzDo

30 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

28 http://berkeleyearth.org/global -temperature-report-for-2020/
Temperatures in the past

https://youtu.be/dvCBoIPknKw

31 - Animation showing a timeline of Earth's average temperature since the last ice age by xkcd (CC BY 2.5 29)

We have seen that global average temperatures have been rising since the instrumental record began.
However, perhaps the temperature rise is simply an anomaly—part of some long-term natural
variability. A hundred and seventy odd years is a relatively short period, all things conside red. Is this
temperature rise unusual?

Extending the temperature record

32 - Figure showing changes in global surface temperature reconstructed from paleoclimate archives (solid grey line, 1–2000)
and from direct observations (solid black line, 1850–2020), both relative to 1850–1900 and decadally averaged (fair use 30)

Well, we can address this issue. We can extend the temperature record. This figure shows the
temperature record of the last 2,000 years. We can see, and indeed the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
states, that the observed warming since 1850 is “unprecedented in more than 2000 years”.

29 https://xkcd.com/1732/
30 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
You might have heard of the Medieval Warm Period that lasted between c. 950 to c. 1250 CE. Evidence
for this comes from historical documents, botany and extant temperature measurements. However, as
you can see from this figure there is little to no evidence that it can be seen in the global temperature
record. We now know that the warm period was isolated to the North Atlantic region and was n ot
global. While the North Atlantic was unusually warm, other regions, such as the tropical Pacific, were
colder than normal. The average global temperatures have no signal of this localised warming. This
shows the danger of relying on data from a limited region and extrapolating that data to infer a global
phenomenon.

Proxy methods

33 - Year-by-year (blue curve) and 50-year average (black curve) variations of the average surface temperature of the Northern
Hemisphere for the past 1000 years have been reconstructed from “proxy” data calibrated against thermometer data (see list of
the main proxy data in the diagram). The 95% confidence range in the annual data is represented by the grey region. These
uncertainties increase in more distant times and are always much larger than in the instrumental record due to the use of
relatively sparse proxy data. Nevertheless the rate and duration of warming of the 20th century has been much greater than in
any of the previous nine centuries. Similarly, it is likely7 that the 1990s have been the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest
year of the millennium. (fair use 31)

You might be wondering how these temperature records are constructed. After all, there were no
temperature records using direct measurements of temperature with thermometers earlier than the
Central England temperature record that began in 1659, and which itself was certainly not global.

In science, it is sometimes necessary to study a variable which cannot be measured directly. This can be
done by proxy methods, in which a variable which correlates with the variable of interest is measured,
and then used to infer the value of the variable of interest. Proxy methods are of particular use in the
study of the past climate, beyond times when direct measurements of temperatures are available.

Most proxy records have to be calibrated against independent temperature measurements, or against a
more directly calibrated proxy, during their period of overlap to estimate the relationship between
temperature and the proxy. The longer history of the proxy is then used to reconstruct temperature
from earlier periods.

31 https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/07/WG1_TAR_SPM.pdf
Dendrochronology

34 - Photograph of tree rings (fair use 32)

Figure illustrating the principle of cross dating (fair use 33)

Perhaps the most well-known proxy method in temperature reconstructions is dendroclimatology34 in

which the width of tree rings is used to determine past climate. Tree rings are wider when conditions
favour growth, and narrower when times are difficult. Using tree rings, scientists have estimated many
local climates for hundreds to thousands of years previous. By combining multiple tree -ring studies, in a
process known as cross dating in which after establishing the chronology from a living tree chronology is
extended back in time by matching the inner rings with the outer rings of dead wood samples, scientists
have estimated past regional and global climates. One of the particular advantages of tree -ring studies is
the ease with which tree rings can be dated.

Coral reefs

35 - Figures showing the drilling of a coral core, the extracted cores in the laboratory, and x-rays of the extracted cores (public
domain35)

Another proxy comes from studying coral reefs. Coral grows in warm, shallow waters and like their land-
based counterparts, corals add seasonal layer, which appear as bands in their hard calcium-carbonate
shells. The bands in the coral’s shell can change in thickness with changes in temperature, water clarity,
or nutrient availability, so while each band can record the season’s climate, the interpretation of the

32 https://rockymountainecology.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/dendrochronology -drew-burford-jr/
33 https://www.geo.uzh.ch/microsite/alpecole/static/course/lessons/28/28c.htm
34 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology
35 https://flowergarden.noaa.gov/science/coralcores.html
record depends on how the three factors are related. Cool water rising from the ocean floor brings extra
nutrients in many areas, so the shells are often thicker when the water is cool. In other areas, the cold
may slow growth. Scientists have to couple their observations of patterns in the seasonal bands to other
measurements, including modern observations of coral growth, to determine what the bands say about
climate change.

In the above figure, you can see a diver drilling a core from a from a colony of Orbicella (Montastraea)
faveolata coral in the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary 36 in 2005. The extracted core
pieces (seen in the middle figure) are then imaged using x-rays to make it easier for scientists to
examine the annual growth bands in reef-building corals. Dark bands show the slow, high-density
growth that takes place during the summer. Lighter bands show the faster, low -density growth that
takes place during the winter.

Ice cores

36 - Photographs showing researchers drilling ice cores from the Greenland ice sheet (public domain 37)

The last proxy method I want to discuss is the study of ice cores. Ice cores are one of the best available
climate proxies, providing a fairly high-resolution estimate of climate changes into the deep past. An ice
core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier. Since the ice
forms from the incremental build-up of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper, and an
ice core contains ice formed over a range of years. The figure shows researchers drilling ice cores from
the Greenland ice sheet as part of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) in 2005.

Such ice cores can reach depths of over two miles, that is 3.2 km, and contain ice up to 800,000 years
old. Since scientists cannot directly measure temperatures from ice cores, they have to rely on
measuring the oxygen isotope, oxygen-18, in water, which is correlated with temperature, if somewhat
imperfectly. The figure here shows the 3053.44 m ice core from the Greenland ice sheet providing a
record of at least the past 110,000 years. The gradually increasing weight of overlying layers compresses

36 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Garden_Banks_Nationa l_Marine_Sanctuary
37 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Paleoclimatology_IceCores
deeply buried snow into ice, but annual bands remain. At the bottom of a core, rocks, sand, and silt
discolour the ice.

37 - Figure showing the extracted ice cores from the Greenland ice sheet (public domain 38)

Vostok Station ice-core temperature record

38 - Figure showing the reconstructed temperature from the Vostok ice core for the past 420,000 years (CC BY -SA 3.039)

The figure here shows the ice-core temperature record from cores drilled at Vostok Station 40 , a Soviet
research station in Antarctica founded during the International Geophysical Year. This core enables the
temperature to be reconstructed for the past 420,000 years. This record reveals past ice ages and
interglacial periods. The last interglacial period ended about 120,000 years ago. Thereafter, we had an
ice age that itself ended about 11,500 years ago. Since then, Earth has been in an interglacial period
called the Holocene 41.

39 - Figures showing the orbit around the Sun with 0.5 eccentricity, exaggerated for illustration; Earth's orbit is only slightly
eccentric (public domain42), the 22.1–24.5° range of Earth's obliquity (public domain43), and the axial precessional movement
(public domain44)

The glacial–interglacial cycles revealed in the ice-core temperature record are caused by Milankovitch
cycles45, that is the variations in eccentricity, axial tilt and precession that result in cyclical variations in
the solar radiation reaching the Earth system. This figure shows that current temperatures have

38 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Paleoclimatology_IceCores
39 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core#/media/File:Vostok_Petit_data.svg
40 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_Station
41 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene
42 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_2.php
43 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_2.php
44 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Milankovitch/milankovitch_2.php
45 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
certainly not been witnessed in the last 100,000 years. However, what is stark about the long-term
temperature record is how unusual the recent rise in temperature is. Although temperature rises of
10°C characterise the transition from glacial to interglacial periods. The rate of the temperature increase
seen recently is far more rapid than has been seen in the last 800,000 years.

Optional: Milankovitch cycles

https://youtu.be/iA788usYNWA

This video from the YouTuber, Paul Merrell, explains how variations in the eccentricity in the Earth's
orbit, axial tilt, and precession over different time scales leads to ice ages. This goes into far more detail
than is necessary for this course.

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Part VI: Concomitant Rise in Greenhouse Gases

https://youtu.be/CEQIAp3P4c4

40 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

Carbon

41 - Image of the book cover of The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (fair use 46)

The next question we need to answer is whether there has been concomitant increase in greenhouse
gas concentrations since the Industrial Revolution. On the face of it, this is a simple question to answer.
We can view the observational records of greenhouse gases.

We can start with carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is an important trace gas in Earth's atmosphere. It is
an integral part of the carbon cycle, that is the biogeochemical cycle in which carbon is exchanged
between the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, soil, rocks and biosphere. The carbon cycle is the subject of
Primo Levi 47’s final chapter in his wonderful book The Periodic Table.

In his book, Primo Levi (1919–1987) writes about the ethereal presence of carbon in the atmosphere. He
writes, "But there is more and worse, to our shame and that of our art. Carbon dioxide, that is, the aerial
form of the carbon of which we have up till now spoken: this gas which constitutes the raw material of
life, the permanent store upon which all that grows draws, and the ultimate destiny of all flesh, is not
one of the principal components of air but rather a ridiculous remnant, an ‘impurity,’ thirty times less

46 https://cdn.waterstones.com/bookjackets/large/9780/1411/9780141185149.jpg
47 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primo_Levi
abundant than argon, which nobody even notices.” (2000, p. 191). Despite the very low concentrations
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, its ability to absorb heat from the ground is vital for making the
Earth a hospitable environment for life as we know it.

I strongly encourage you all to avail yourselves of the opportunity to read this chapter, if no t the entire
book.

References

Levi, P. (2000) The Periodic Table (R. Rosenthal, Trans.). London: Penguin Books Ltd.

Keeling curve

42 - Figure showing the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from 1958 to 2020 (CC BY-SA 4.048)

The dataset we introduced in the last lecture was that from the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. A
dataset started by Charles Keeling and which now bears his name. The Keeling curve shows atmospheric
CO₂ concentrations rising from 315 ppmv in 1958 to in excess of the 415 ppmv levels seen today.
Impressed upon this steady increase in carbon dioxide concentrations is a seasonal variation. But why
do we see this seasonal variation?

48 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve#/media/File:Mauna_Loa_CO2_monthly_mean_concentration.svg
Colours of life

https://youtu.be/6Peu1cOAw7s

43 - Video showing carbon dioxide graph from 1980 to 2005 over global biosphere data (public domain 49)

This animation, produced by NASA, shows the global biosphere in the background and the
corresponding carbon dioxide graph in the foreground. The biosphere is represented as phytoplankton
concentrations over the ocean and the vegetation index over land. The carbon dioxide concentrations
are from Mauna Loa in Hawaii. As each year progresses notice how the greening of the land moves
south to north, then north to south. Also notice how this corresponds to the carbon dioxide graph. The
carbon dioxide content falls during the Northern Hemisphere summer when photosynthesis surpasses
respiration and decomposition. It then rises during the late autumn to early spring when respiration and
decomposition of the previous season’s crop of leaves exceeds photosynthesis. These are the seasonal
oscillations in the carbon dioxide graph. This animation reveals the intimate connection between the
biosphere and atmosphere that is the short-term terrestrial carbon cycle. Perhaps more poetically, this
shows the Earth breathing, in and out, once per year.

Ice-core carbon dioxide record

44 - Figure showing the carbon dioxide concentrations over the last 800,000 years (CC BY-SA 3.050)

Did this upward trend though begin with the Industrial Revolution? We can go further back in time by
using the ice-core record. Carbon dioxide concentrations, and indeed the concentrations of other gases,

49 https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi -bin/details.cgi?aid=3309
50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#/media/File:Carbon_Dioxide_800kyr.svg
can be determined from the composition of air in bubbles trapped in the ice. This figure shows carbon
dioxide concentrations during the last 800,000 years. We can clearly see variations in carbon dioxide
throughout the Pleistocene51 from lows of about 180 ppmv, during deep glaciations, to 280 ppmv during
interglacial periods. Pre-industrial concentrations are confirmed to be 280 ppmv. The current
concentrations of carbon dioxide have not been seen in at least the last 2 million years. The rate of
increase of carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution is also profoundly unprecedented.

Methane and nitrous oxide

45 - Figure showing global atmospheric concentrations of methane over the last 800,000 years (public domain52)

Similar records of other greenhouse gases tell the same story. Methane (CH₄) concentrations have
increased from pre-industrial values of about 600 ppbv to levels over 1800 ppbv—a three-fold increase.
Nitrous oxide (N₂O) concentrations have increased from some 270 ppbv to 338 ppbv today.

It is clear that the increase in temperatures since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been
accompanied by increases in the concentrations of greenhouse gases. The current concentrations of
greenhouse gases have not been witnessed in at least the last several hundred thousand years. The
rapidity of these increases has also never been seen in our record of greenhouse gas concentrations.

51 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene
52 https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-atmospheric-concentrations-greenhouse-

gases
 46 - Figure showing global atmospheric concentrations nitrous oxide over the last 800,000 years (public domain 53)

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Part VII: Anthropogenic or Natural

https://youtu.be/_R-FeUJ0khs

47 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

Global carbon cycle

We have seen that the observational record shows rising global average temperatures. We have also
seen that this rise is unusual. We have evidence that the rise in temperature since the Industrial
Revolution has been accompanied by rising greenhouse gas concentrations, in particular carbon dioxide.
The next question that we need to answer is how can we be sure that the rise in carbon dioxide is due to
the burning of fossil fuels?

This is a challenging question. It requires us to think deeply about the carbon cycle. We have discussed
the carbon cycle before, it was the topic of Primo Levi's chapter Carbon in his book The Periodic Table. It
is one of the biogeochemical cycles 54 so important to life. It relies on the fact that nature recycles: the
atoms within living organisms came from inorganic, non-living matter; the same atoms will exit living
organisms as inorganic matter, thus completing the cycle. It should be noted that carbon is a constituent
of all organic molecules. Life as we know it is based on carbon.

A biogeochemical cycle traces the movement, through the Earth system, of chemicals that are essential
to life. Cycles can be described in terms of reservoirs (i.e., where the chemicals reside) and exchange
fluxes between reservoirs (i.e., the rate of chemicals flowing between reservoirs). The global carbon
cycle describes the movement of carbon between the carbon reservoirs in the Earth system. An

53 https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-atmospheric-concentrations-greenhouse-

gases
54 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogeochemical_cycle
imbalance in the exchange fluxes, entering or leaving a reservoir, will result in a change i n the size of the
reservoir. Burning fossil fuels increases the exchange flux of carbon into the atmosphere resulting in an
increase in the atmospheric carbon reservoir.

The greatest physical reservoir of carbon is not atmospheric carbon dioxide, but instead is located in the
Earth’s crust and is not easily accessible to biological organisms. The source of virtually all carbon found
in living organisms is CO₂ either in the atmosphere or dissolved in water. The global carbon cycle can be
viewed as a series of reservoirs of carbon in the Earth System, which are connected by exchange fluxes
of carbon. An exchange flux is the amount of carbon which moves between reservoirs each year. Before
human activities, such as land use changes and industrial processes, had a significant impact, the global
carbon cycle was roughly balanced. However, CO₂ has increased by almost 50% from around 280 ppmv
in 1750 to the current levels of over 415 ppmv.

Balancing the carbon budget

48 - Figure illustrating the changing carbon cycle (fair use 55)

This figure shows the reservoirs and exchange fluxes of carbon in the global carbon cycle. The numbers
represent carbon reservoirs in Petagrams of Carbon and the annual exchanges in PgC/year. A petagram
is equivalent to a billion metric tonnes. The black numbers and arrows show the pre -industrial reservoirs
and fluxes. The red numbers and arrows show the additional fluxes caused by human activities averaged
over 2000–2009, which include emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels, cement production and land
use change (in total about 9 PgC/year). Some of this additional anthropogenic carbon is taken up by the
land and the ocean (about 5 PgC/year) while the remainder is left in the atmosphere (4 PgC/year),
explaining the rising atmospheric concentrations of CO₂. The red numbers in the reservoirs show the
cumulative changes in anthropogenic carbon from 1750–2011; a positive change indicates that the
reservoir has gained carbon.

This accountancy of the carbon budget is difficult and fraught with uncertainty. The studies to estimate
the exchange fluxes are some of the most challenging in Earth science. Not surprisingly many climate

55 https://www.metlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/6.1_nokey1.jpg
change deniers have argued that these studies are flawed and do not show that burning fossil fuels has
increased the atmospheric carbon reservoir.

Carbon-14

49 - Figure showing the production of carbon-14 and how it enters the carbon cycle (fair use 56)

However, scientists have been able to conclusively show that the increase in carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere is due to burning fossil fuels, and they did this indirectly by measuring the atmospheric
concentrations of carbon-14. Carbon-14 is formed in the upper atmosphere through the impact of
cosmic radiation. The carbon-14 is eventually oxidised to carbon dioxide and through photosynthesis it
is incorporated into the biosphere. Anything made of organic material will have carbon -14 present in its
structure. This carbon-14 is radioactive and decays with a half-life of some 5,730 years. If we know the
amount of carbon-14 as a function of time in the past, then we can use measurements of carbon-14 to
date materials. This is the basis of radiocarbon dating 57 .

Suess effect

56 https://international-soil-radiocarbon-database.github.io/SOC-Hub/2018/10/06/Radiocarbon/
57 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating
 50 - Graph showing the Suess effect by which the remnants of anthropogenic carbon-14 in the atmosphere following open-air
nuclear tests are diluted by carbon from burning fossil fuels (fair use 58)

Hans Suess, who we discussed earlier, realised that burning fossil fuels would dilute the amount of
carbon-14 present in the atmosphere. This is because fossil fuels are devoid of carbon-14 as they are
formed from the fossilised remains of animal and plant life that died hundreds of millions of years ago
primarily in the Carboniferous period. Any carbon-14 originally present in the organic material of these
dead animals and plants will have long ago decayed. Suess recognised that the influence of this dilution
would affect the accuracy of radiocarbon dating. More recently, the Suess effect has been used to argue
that the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is due to burning fossil fuels.

This figure shows the per mille change in carbon-14 containing atmospheric carbon dioxide since the
end of the Second World War. The small dilution of carbon-14 in the shaded green area is the effect
postulated by Suess. As you can see, there was a dramatic rise in carbon-14 in the mid- to late 1950s
that continued until the early 1960s. This rise in the amount of carbon-14 was due to the open-air
testing of atomic weapons. Following the signing of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban treaty in 1963, which
prohibited nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere or under water, we can see that carbon -14
concentrations dropped dramatically. The mechanism for this drop was not radioactive decay, after all
carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years and so radioactive decay would not be noticeable on the
timescale in this figure, instead the mechanism was due to the dilution through the burning of fossil
fuel. The rate of decay can be shown to match exactly that which would be expected given the increase
in atmospheric carbon dioxide through the burning of fossil fuels. There is simply no other mechanism
that can explain this decay in carbon-14.

58 https://international -soil-radiocarbon-database.github.io/SOC-Hub/2018/10/06/Radiocarbon/
 51 - Photograph of Paul Crutzen by Teemu Rajala (CC BY 3.059)

It should be noted that this human-caused disruption to the carbon-14 amounts in the atmosphere
through the testing of nuclear weapons has often been cited to mark the transition from the Holocene
to the current period in which humans have become a dominant force of global environmental change.
The 1995 Nobel prize winner, Paul Crutzen 60 (1933–2021), coined the term Anthropocene61 to denote
this current period. Crutzen explained why he coined this term when he said, “I was at a conference
where someone said something about the Holocene. I suddenly thought this was wrong. The world has
changed too much. So I said: ‘No, we are in the Anthropocene.’ I just made up the word on the spur of
the moment. Everyone was shocked. But it seems to have stuck.”

Many dates have been postulated for the start of the Anthropocene, but perhaps the most common
date mooted is 16 July 1945. On this date the Trinity atomic bomb test was conducted. The figure here
shows the Trinity Site explosion, 0.016 second after explosion. The viewed hemisphere's highest point in
this image is about 200 meters high.

59 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_J._Crutzen#/media/File:Paul_Crutzen.jpg
60 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_J._Crutzen
61 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Anthropocene
 52 - Photograph of the Trinity test in July 1945 by Berlyn Brixner (public domain62)

Optional: The Global Carbon Cycle

https://youtu.be/aLuSi_6Ol8M

53 - The Global Carbon Cycle by YouTuber Crash Course

This video from the YouTuber, Hank Green part of the Crash Course team, explains global carbon cycle in
an informative and entertaining manner. It discusses the connection between the carbon cycle and
climate change. This goes into far more detail than is necessary for this course.

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62 https://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/national-security-science/2020-summer/trinity-feature.shtml
Part VIII: On the Nature of Scientific Understanding

https://youtu.be/ykL0Mxj0hCU

54 - Video written and produced by Adrian Lee

Scientific understanding
The final question that needed to be answered to convince the scientific community was to show that
we understand human-induced climate change. Indeed, this is one of the central aims of the IPCC.

Science has not only produced a vast amount of knowledge about a wide range of phenomena, it has
also enhanced our understanding of these phenomena. Indeed, understanding can be regarded as one
of the central aims of science.
 55 - Image shows the book cover of Understanding Scientific Understanding by Henk de Regt (fair use 63)

But what exactly is it to understand phenomena scientifically, and how can scientific understanding be
achieved? One way to argue this is that scientists achieve understanding of a phenomenon P if they
construct an appropriate model of P on the basis of a theory T. Henk de Regt identifies the Criterion for
Understanding Phenomena in the following way: "A phenomenon P is understood scientifically, if and
only if, there is an explanation of P that is based on an intelligible theory T and conforms to the basic
epistemic values of empirical adequacy and internal consistency." (de Regt, 2017, p. 92).

Scientists acquire understanding of phenomena by constructing models. The climate science community
has built such models. Using the relevant physical, chemical and indeed biological theories, they have
built mathematical models based on the conceptual models that describe how each part of the Earth
system is inter-connected. These mathematical models are realised as computer-based climate models.
The aim of these climate models being to attempt to quantitatively explain the rise in temperatures
witnessed since the Industrial Revolution.

63 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/understanding-scientific-understanding-

9780190652913?q=regt&lang=en&cc=nl#
References

de Regt, H. W. (1988) Understanding Scientific Understanding. New York: Oxford University Press.

Modelling global surface temperatures

56 - Graph showing changes in global surface temperature from model runs which include both anthropogenic and natural
forcings and from those which include only natural forcings (fair use 64)

In the figure shown here from the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC, we can see the observed
changes in global surface temperature over the past 170 years, represented by the black line, relative to
an 1850–1900 baseline. This is compared to the CMIP6 climate model simulations of the temperature
response to both human and natural drivers, represented in brown, and to only natural drivers, that is
solar and volcanic activity, represented in green. Solid coloured lines show the multi -model average, and
coloured shades show the very likely range of simulations.

Note that the brown solid line, representing the average of all the model simulations that include both
human and natural drivers, closely follows the observed temperature record indicated by the black line.
The model simulations that exclude human influence through increasing greenhouse gases, and only
include natural drivers, show no warming across the entire period from 1850 to the present day. The
model simulations argue that it is impossible to reproduce the observed warming in global surface
temperatures without including the increase in greenhouse gases due, in the case of carbon dioxide, to
the burning of fossil fuels.

These models represent our best understanding of climate science and human-induced climate change
in particular. They offer convincing evidence that we do understand human-induced climate change with
a great deal of fidelity.

64 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
 57 - CMIP6 logo (fair use 65) and an infographic showing many of the elements included in climate models used in CMIP6 (fair
use66)

The CMIP6 is the sixth iteration of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. CMIP6 consists of
simulations from around 100 distinct climate models produced across 49 different modelling groups.
These models simulate the physics, chemistry and biology of the atmosphere, land and oceans in great
detail, and require some of the largest supercomputers in the world to generate their climate
projections. The objective of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project is to better understand past,
present and future climate changes arising from natural, unforced variability or in response to changes
in radiative forcing in a multi-model context.

65 https://ukesm.ac.uk/cmip6/
66 https://e3sm.org/e3sm-cmip6-deck-data-is-available/
Consensus achieved

It is in answering the questions set earlier, that is that global temperatures are rising, that this ri se is
unusual, that greenhouse gases are also rising, that this rise in greenhouse gases is due to human
emissions, and that our models quantitatively reproduce the observed warming, that the scientific
community reached the consensus position that human-induced climate change is happening.

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What have you learnt?

We set ourselves five intended learning outcomes at the beginning of the lecture. These were that by
the end of the lecture, you should be able to:

1. Describe the history of the establishment of the scientific consensus on climate change including
the role played by the IPCC;

2. Articulate the difference between weather and climate, and between the greenhouse effect and
climate change;

3. Outline how proxy methods used in the reconstruction of past temperatures;

4. Recognise the difference between the public perception of the scientific consensus on climate
change and that of the scientific community; and,

5. Explain how the scientific consensus on climate change was established.

To achieve ILO1, you should be able to describe what is meant by scientific consensus. You should
further be able to identify the accumulation of scientific evidence of climate change following the
seminal studies of Callendar. The International Geophysical Year played an important role in
coordinating observational studies, whereas the formation of the IPCC helped curate the scientific
evidence in support of the scientific consensus. Although scientific consensus that climate change would
eventually happen was realised early, you should also be able to discuss the challenges faced by the
scientific community in identifying when climate change would be observable. If you are unsure, you
should review Parts I 67 , II68 and III69.

To achieve ILO2, you should be able to articulate what is meant by weather and climate, and how
changes in the greenhouse effect leads to climate change. If you are unsure, you should review Part I 70.

To achieve ILO3, you should be able to outline what is meant by a proxy method and be able to identify
proxy methods. You should further be able to discuss how changes in the proxy relate to temperature
and the time periods over which proxy methods can be used. If you are unsure, you should review Part
V 71.

To achieve ILO4, you should be able to recognise the difference between how consensus is used in the
scientific community and its colloquial meaning to the public at large. You should be able to state the
level of scientific consensus on climate change within the scientific community, as well as a sense of the
level with which the public views this scientific consensus. If you are unsure, you should review Parts I 72
and III73.

To achieve ILO5, you should be able to explain the questions that needed to be answered for a
consensus on climate change to be established. You should be able to identify the evidence that the
scientific community brought to bear that showed that temperatures were rising, that recent
temperature rises were unprecedented, that greenhouse gas concentrations were also rising, that the
increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were due to the burning of fossil fuels, and that,
through model simulations, we understood the human-induced climate change. If you are unsure, you
should review Parts IV 74 , V 75 , VI76 , VII77 and VIII78.

67 https://youtu.be/dxzbdqtXF2M
68 https://youtu.be/aICT4Moo7IE
69 https://youtu.be/R4iWSNmR4jQ
70 https://youtu.be/dxzbdqtXF2M
71 https://youtu.be/gKEiETUnzDo
72 https://youtu.be/dxzbdqtXF2M
73 https://youtu.be/R4iWSNmR4jQ
74 https://youtu.be/AcNjasMj0k8
75 https://youtu.be/gKEiETUnzDo
76 https://youtu.be/CEQIAp3P4c4
77 https://youtu.be/_R-FeUJ0khs
78 https://youtu.be/ykL0Mxj0hCU