New evidence confirms human activities drive global warming February 22, 2016

A new statistical technique, analysing data records since measuring started 150 years ago, independently confirms that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emissions have led to global warming, according to a JRC-led article published Nature Scientific Reports. The analysis also shows that the most pronounced consequences of such emissions are being felt in localised regions around the globe, such as Europe, North America, China, Siberia, the Sahel zone in Africa, and Alaska.

The authors investigated the causes of global warming using a new statistical method for quantifying causality to analyse the relation between time series data on greenhouse gas emissions and those on air temperatures in the last 150 years. The results confirm that recent global warming is mainly caused by increased anthropogenic (man-made) emissions and that further CO2 emissions to the atmosphere will lead to even stronger global warming.
This conclusion cannot be achieved through traditional, time-delayed correlations between temperature and GHG emissions changes or through ordinary least square regression analysis, as neither shows the causal relations. Being based on measured data, the results provide complementary support to model-based studies.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-evidence-human-global.html#jCp