Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Detection of human influence on twentieth-century precipitation trends

Nature volume 448, pages 461–465 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Human influence on climate has been detected in surface air temperature1,2,3,4,5, sea level pressure6, free atmospheric temperature7, tropopause height8 and ocean heat content9. Human-induced changes have not, however, previously been detected in precipitation at the global scale10,11,12, partly because changes in precipitation in different regions cancel each other out and thereby reduce the strength of the global average signal13,14,15,16,17,18,19. Models suggest that anthropogenic forcing should have caused a small increase in global mean precipitation and a latitudinal redistribution of precipitation, increasing precipitation at high latitudes, decreasing precipitation at sub-tropical latitudes15,18,19, and possibly changing the distribution of precipitation within the tropics by shifting the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone20. Here we compare observed changes in land precipitation during the twentieth century averaged over latitudinal bands with changes simulated by fourteen climate models. We show that anthropogenic forcing has had a detectable influence on observed changes in average precipitation within latitudinal bands, and that these changes cannot be explained by internal climate variability or natural forcing. We estimate that anthropogenic forcing contributed significantly to observed increases in precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, drying in the Northern Hemisphere subtropics and tropics, and moistening in the Southern Hemisphere subtropics and deep tropics. The observed changes, which are larger than estimated from model simulations, may have already had significant effects on ecosystems, agriculture and human health in regions that are sensitive to changes in precipitation, such as the Sahel.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Comparison between observed (solid black) and simulated zonal mean land precipitation trends for 1925–1999 (left) and 1950–1999 (right).
Figure 2: 1925–1999 changes in observed and simulated precipitation anomalies.
Figure 3: Results from detection and attribution analysis of zonal precipitation anomalies.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. IDAG (International ad hoc Detection and Attribution Group). Detecting and attributing external influences on the climate system: A review of recent advances. J. Clim. 18, 1291–1314 (2005)

  2. Hegerl, G. C. et al. Multi-fingerprint detection and attribution of greenhouse-gas and aerosol-forced climate change. Clim. Dyn. 13, 613–634 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Tett, S. F. B., Stott, P. A., Allen, M. R., Ingram, W. & Mitchell, J. Causes of twentieth-century temperature change near the Earth’s surface. Nature 339, 569–572 (1999)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Zhang, X., Zwiers, F. W. & Stott, P. A. Multi-model multi-signal climate change detection at regional scale. J. Clim. 19, 4294–4307 (2006)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Stott, P. A. Attribution of regional-scale temperature changes to anthropogenic and natural causes. Geophys. Res. Lett. 30 1724 doi: 10.1029/2003GL017324 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Gillett, N. P., Zwiers, F. W., Weaver, A. J. & Stott, P. A. Detection of human influence on sea level pressure. Nature 422, 292–294 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Jones, G. S., Tett, S. F. B. & Stott, P. A. Causes of atmospheric temperature change 1960–2000: A combined attribution analysis. Geophys. Res. Lett. 30 1228 doi: 10.1029/2002GL016377 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Santer, B. D. et al. Contributions of anthropogenic and natural forcing to recent tropopause height changes. Science 301, 479–483 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Barnett, T. P. & Pierce, D. AchutaRao, K. Santer, B. & Gleicker, P. Penetration of human-induced warming into the world’s oceans. Science 309, 284–287 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Gillett, N. P., Weaver, A. J., Zwiers, F. W. & Wehner, M. F. Detection of volcanic influence on global precipitation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31 L12217 doi: 10.1029/2004GL020044 (2004)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Lambert, F. H., Stott, P. A., Allen, M. R. & Palmer, M. A. Detection and attribution of changes in 20th century land precipitation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31 L10203 doi: 10.1029/2004GL019545 (2004)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. Lambert, F. H., Gillett, N. P., Stone, D. A. & Huntingford, C. Attribution studies of observed land precipitation changes with nine coupled models. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32 L18704 doi: 10.1029/2005GL023654 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Hulme, M., Osborne, T. J. & Johns, T. C. Precipitation sensitivity to global warming: comparison of observations with HadCM2 simulations. Geophys. Res. Lett. 25, 3379–3382 (1998)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Dai, A., Fung, I. Y. & Del Genio, A. D. Surface observed global land precipitation variation during 1900–88. J. Clim. 10, 2943–2962 (1997)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Held, I. M. & Soden, B. J. Robust responses of the hydrological cycle to global warming. J. Clim. 19, 5686–5699 (2006)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Hegerl, G. C., Zwiers, F. W., Kharin, V. V. & Stott, P. A. Detectability of anthropogenic changes in temperature and precipitation extremes. J. Clim. 17, 3683–3700 (2004)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Allen, M. R. & Ingram, W. J. Constraints on future changes in climate and the hydrologic cycle. Nature 429, 224–232 (2002)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Cubasch, U. et al. in Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis (ed. Houghton, J. T. et al.) 525–582 (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 2001)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Emori, S. & Brown, S. J. Dynamic and thermodynamic changes in mean and extreme precipitation under changed climate. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32 L17706 doi: 10.1029/2005GL023272 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Rotstayn, L. D. & Lohmann, U. Tropical rainfall trends and the indirect aerosol effect. J. Clim. 15, 2103–2116 (2002)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  21. Vose, R. S. et al. The Global Historical Climatology Network: Long-Term Monthly Temperature, Precipitation, Sea Level Pressure, and Station Pressure Data. Report ORNL/CDIAC-53, NDP-041 (Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1992); 〈http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp041/ndp041.pdf〉

  22. Hulme, M. A. 1951–80 global land precipitation climatology for the evaluation of general circulation models. Clim. Dyn. 7, 57–72 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Allen, M. R. & Stott, P. A. Estimating signal amplitudes in optimal fingerprinting. Part I: Theory. Clim. Dyn. 21, 477–491 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Hasselmann, K. Multi-pattern fingerprint method for detection and attribution of climate change. Clim. Dyn. 13, 601–612 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Allen, M. R. & Tett, S. F. B. Checking for model consistency in optimal fingerprinting. Clim. Dyn. 15, 419–434 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Gillett, N. P. et al. Detecting anthropogenic influence with a multi-model ensemble. Geophys. Res. Lett. 29 doi: 10.1029/2002GL015836 (2002)

  27. Wentz, F. J., Ricciardulli, L., Hilburn, K. & Mears, C. How much more rain will global warming bring? Science doi:10.1126/science.1140746 (2007); published online 31 May 2007

  28. Soden, B. J. The sensitivity of the tropical hydrological cycle to ENSO. J. Clim. 13, 538–549 (2000)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  29. Soden, B. J., Jackson, D. L., Ramaswamy, V., Schwarzkopf, M. D. & Huang, X. The radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening. Science 310 doi: 10.1126/science.1115602 (2005)

  30. Held, I. M., Delworth, T. D., Lu, J., Findell, K. L. & Knutson, T. R. Simulation of Sahel drought in the 20th and 21st centuries. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102, 17891–17896 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Kharin, V. V., Zwiers, F. W. & Zhang, X. Intercomparison of near-surface temperature and precipitation extremes in AMIP2 simulations, reanalyses, and observations. J. Clim. 18, 5201–5223 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank R. Vose (National Climatic Data Centre, NOAA) for the observed precipitation data, S.-K. Min for the provision of ECHO-G data, J. Wang (supported by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences) for processing model data and Y. Feng for computational assistance. We acknowledge the international modeling groups who contributed to the multi-model data archive at PCMDI (the Program for Climate Model Diagnostics and Intercomparison), which is supported by the Office of Science, US Department of Energy. Part of this work was supported by NOAA’s Office of Global Programs (G.C.H. and S.S.) and the DOE’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research (G.C.H.). G.C.H. was also supported by the NSF and by Duke University. N.P.G., F.H.L. and T.N. were supported by the Leverhulme Trust, the Comer Science and Education Foundation, and the MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), respectively. P.A.S. was supported by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Climate Research Division, Environment Canada, Toronto, Ontario M3H 5T4, Canada,

    Xuebin Zhang & Francis W. Zwiers

  2. Nicholas School for the Environment and Earth Sciences, Box 90227, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA,

    Gabriele C. Hegerl

  3. Department of Geography, 507 McCone Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA,

    F. Hugo Lambert

  4. Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK,

    Nathan P. Gillett

  5. NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA,

    Susan Solomon

  6. Met Office Hadley Centre (Reading Unit), Meteorology Building, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK,

    Peter A. Stott

  7. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan,

    Toru Nozawa

Authors
  1. Xuebin Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Francis W. Zwiers
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Gabriele C. Hegerl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. F. Hugo Lambert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Nathan P. Gillett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Susan Solomon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Peter A. Stott
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Toru Nozawa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francis W. Zwiers.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Notes, Supplementary Figures 1-7 with Legends, Supplementary Tables 1-3 and additional references. (PDF 292 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zhang, X., Zwiers, F., Hegerl, G. et al. Detection of human influence on twentieth-century precipitation trends. Nature 448, 461–465 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06025

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06025

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing