Article via https://www.eurekalert.org
This fingerprint, however, neglected information from the mid to upper stratosphere, 25 to 50 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.
In the upper stratosphere, the noise of variability is smaller, and the human-caused climate change signal is larger, so the signal can be much more easily distinguished.
“This is the clearest evidence there is of a human-caused climate change signal associated with CO 2 increases,” according to lead author Benjamin Santer, an adjunct scientist in the Physical Oceanography Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in Massachusetts.
The new research is the first to search for human-caused climate change patterns – also called “fingerprints” – in the middle and upper stratosphere.
“We now face important decisions, in the United States and globally, on what to do about climate change.