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Arctic climate change

Greenhouse warming unleashed

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 271–272 (2016)Cite this article

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Human activity alters the atmospheric composition, which leads to global warming. Model simulations suggest that reductions in emission of sulfur dioxide from Europe since the 1970s could have unveiled rapid Arctic greenhouse gas warming.

The Arctic regional climate is changing much faster than the Earth's climate as a whole, a phenomenon termed Arctic amplification. Although much is now understood concerning its origin, the rapid Arctic warming continues to fascinate and frighten climate scientists and the public alike. Writing in Nature Geoscience, Acosta Navarro and Varma et al.1 present model simulations wherein a substantial fraction of the rapid Arctic warming between 1980 and 2015 is shown to be rooted in reduced cooling due to European sulfur emission reductions.

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Figure 1: Global versus Arctic temperature trends for the period 1980–2005.

References

  1. Acosta Navarro, J. C. et al. Nature Geosci. 9, 277–281 (2016).

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  2. Smith, S. J. et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 1101–1116 (2011).

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  3. Sand, M. et al. Nature Clim. Change 6, 286–289 (2016).

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  1. Thorsten Mauritsen is at the Max Planck Institut für Meteorologie, Bundesstrasse 53, 20146 Hamburg, Germany,

    Thorsten Mauritsen

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  1. Thorsten Mauritsen
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Correspondence to Thorsten Mauritsen.

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Mauritsen, T. Greenhouse warming unleashed. Nature Geosci 9, 271–272 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2677

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