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Scientific literature and opinion

Some examples of published and informal support for the consensus view:

* The attribution of climate change is discussed extensively, with references to peer-reviewed research, in chapter 12 of the IPCC TAR, which discusses The Meaning of Detection and Attribution, Quantitative Comparison of Observed and Modelled Climate Change, Pattern Correlation Methods and Optimal Fingerprint Methods.

* An essay [13] in Science surveyed 928 abstracts related to climate change, and concluded that most journal reports accepted the consensus. This is discussed further in scientific opinion on climate change.

* A recent paper (Estimation of natural and anthropogenic contributions to twentieth century temperature change, Tett SFB et al., JGR 2002), says that "Our analysis suggests that the early twentieth century warming can best be explained by a combination of warming due to increases in greenhouse gases and natural forcing, some cooling due to other anthropogenic forcings, and a substantial, but not implausible, contribution from internal variability. In the second half of the century we find that the warming is largely caused by changes in greenhouse gases, with changes in sulphates and, perhaps, volcanic aerosol offsetting approximately one third of the warming." [14]

* In 1996, in a paper in Nature entitled "A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere", Benjamin D. Santer et al. wrote: "The observed spatial patterns of temperature change in the free atmosphere from 1963 to 1987 are similar to those predicted by state-of-the-art climate models incorporating various combinations of changes in carbon dioxide, anthropogenic sulphate aerosol and stratospheric ozone concentrations. The degree of pattern similarity between models and observations increases through this period. It is likely that this trend is partially due to human activities, although many uncertainties remain, particularly relating to estimates of natural variability." This earlier work only addressed the most recent period. Estimates of natural variability matter for assessing the significance of the trend.

* Even some scientists noted for their somewhat sceptical view of global warming accept that recent climate change is mostly anthropogenic. John Christy has said that "...he supports the AGU declaration, and is convinced that human activities are the major cause of the global warming that has been measured..."[citation needed]

Some scientists do disagree with the consensus: see List of scientists opposing global warming consensus. For example Willie Soon and Richard Lindzen ("Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change?", Lindzen RS, 1997, PNAS 94(16)) say that there is insufficient proof for anthropogenic attribution. Generally this position requires new physical mechanisms to explain the observed warming; for example "Climate hypersensitivity to solar forcing?", Soon W et al., 2000, Annales Geophysicae-Atmospheres Hydrospheres and Space Sciences 18(5).

"Vous allez tous mourrir"