1 Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. karsten.haustein@ouce.ox.ac.uk.
2 Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
3 Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
4 School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
5 School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
6 Department of Geography Planning and Environment, Concordia University Montreal, Montreal, Canada.
7 New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.

A real-time Global Warming Index.

Sci Rep. 2017 Nov 13;7(1):15417

Authors: Haustein K, Allen MR, Forster PM, Otto FEL, Mitchell DM, Matthews HD, Frame DJ

Abstract

We propose a simple real-time index of global human-induced warming and assess its robustness to uncertainties in climate forcing and short-term climate fluctuations. This index provides improved scientific context for temperature stabilisation targets and has the potential to decrease the volatility of climate policy. We quantify uncertainties arising from temperature observations, climate radiative forcings, internal variability and the model response. Our index and the associated rate of human-induced warming is compatible with a range of other more sophisticated methods to estimate the human contribution to observed global temperature change.

PMID: 29133863 [PubMed - in process]