14 DAY TRIAL // In an new analysis, carried out by an international group of scientists, the main factors that influenced the European climate over the past 500 years or so were identified and cataloged. It was determined that volcanic eruptions, solar activity patterns and greenhouse gas emissions were the most important influences on the overall climate.
The research looked at both natural and artificial factors, and sought to quantify the role both types played in the final result. In the end, the purpose of this study is to aid climate experts in better understanding the dynamics of climate change.
In past studies conducted on this issue, experts determined that external influences did not affect the overall European climate before the year 1900. But the new data shows that the influences not only existed, but were also varied.
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, humans began emitting aerosols and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Volcanoes erupted regularly too, spewing both carbon dioxide and sulfur into the air, and triggering volcanic winters and rises in temperatures.
At the same time, the Sun underwent its normal, 11-year cycle, which at times saw it releasing massive amount of solar radiation that battered our planet. Over the past 500 years, all of these factors worked together to underlie the current European climate.
“The influence of the increase in levels of greenhouse gases, in particular, can be clearly seen since the end of the 17th Century,” tells SINC researcher Jesús Fidel González Rouco.
The team member holds an appointment as a physicist at the Complutense University of Madrid, and is is also the co-author of a new study detailing the findings, which has been published online recently, in the esteemed scientific journal Nature Geoscience.
“For the first time we are able to attribute causes to how the climate has evolved over several centuries, working at continental and seasonal scale,” González Rouco goes on to say, quoted by Eurekalert.
“And the relevance of this approach is based on the fact that the impact of any possible climate change can be greater for societies and ecosystems within the range of these spatial and time-based scales,” he adds.
The international group that conducted the study included experts from the University of Edinburgh (UK), the Complutense University, the Justus-Liebig University (Germany) and the University of Berne (Switzerland).