England's warming 'not natural'
Pastor Dale Morgan
England's warming 'not natural'*
BBC - Temperatures in central England are about 1C higher than in the
1950s, and humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are the reason, a new
study shows.
Researchers at the Meteorological Office analysed temperature records
going back almost 350 years.
They found that the warming observed over the past 50 years is extremely
unlikely to be part of a natural cycle.
Recent studies show British animals migrating northwards, and spring
arriving earlier right across Europe.
These are also thought to be signs of temperatures rising in Britain and
western Europe, in step with the planet as a whole.
Long run
The Central England Temperature (CET) record dates back to 1659, and is
the longest continuous series of temperature measurements made by
instruments anywhere in the world.
Central England temperatures are computed by averaging readings taken at
three sites
Currently, measurements are made at Pershore, Rothamsted and Stonyhurst,
and then averaged.
Since the 1950s, CET has risen by about 1C - more than the global
average, but less than the increase recorded in parts of the world
thought to be particularly sensitive to climate disruption such as the
Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic Peninsula.
David Karoly (now at the University of Oklahoma) and Peter Stott of the
Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, used a recent computer model
of climate to work out the chance that this rise was part of a natural
cycle.
The probability was, they calculated, less than 5%.
Writing in the journal Atmospheric Science Letters, they conclude:
"Hence, the observed annual mean warming trend over the last 50 years is
very unlikely to be due to natural internal climate variability alone."
The researchers found that when they introduced into the model the
factor of "anthropogenic forcing" - greenhouse gases produced by
industry, transport and other human activities - the model reproduced
the observed temperatures.