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.

Atmospheric science

Clean air policy and Arctic warming

Nature Geoscience volume 2, pages 243–244 (2009)Cite this article

The enhanced Arctic warming over the past three decades is attracting much attention. Combining forward and inverse models with observations suggests that regional changes in aerosol concentrations have contributed significantly.

The mechanisms and patterns of climate change in the twentieth century are still not fully understood. Whereas it is well accepted that anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions caused most of the global warming during the last century, the relative contributions of emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, respectively, to changes on shorter timescales and at a more regional level are less clear. At a regional scale, climate models do not capture surface temperature trends everywhere. For example, during the past 30 years the Earth's surface has warmed more quickly over the North Atlantic Ocean and Eurasia than was simulated by the models used in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whereas the changes in the eastern Pacific Ocean were weaker than simulated (Fig. 1b).

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

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

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

Figure 1: Three decades of warming.

References

  1. Smith, T. M. & Reynolds, R. W. J. Clim. 18, 2021–2036 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Hegerl, G. C. et al. in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) 663–746 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Chand, D., Wood, R., Anderson, T. L., Satheesh, S. K. & Charlson, R. J. Nature Geosci. 2, 181–184 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Forster, P. et al. in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) 129–234 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Shindell, D. & Faluvegi, G. Nature Geosci. 2, 294–300 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Stern, D. I. Glob. Environ. Change 16, 207–220 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Bond, T. C. et al. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 21, GB2018 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Meehl, G. A. et al. in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (eds Solomon, S. et al.) 747–846 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Zhang, R., Delworth, T. L. & Held, I. M. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L02709 (2007).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Noel Keenlyside is at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR), DÜsternbrooker Weg 20, 24105 Kiel, Germany. nkeenlyside@ifm-geomar.de,

    Noel Keenlyside

Authors
  1. Noel Keenlyside
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Keenlyside, N. Clean air policy and Arctic warming. Nature Geosci 2, 243–244 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo486

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo486

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