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Publication Abstracts

Hansen et al. 1998

Hansen, J., M. Sato, A. Lacis, R. Ruedy, I. Tegen, and E. Matthews, 1998: Perspective: Climate forcings in the industrial era. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 95, 12753-12758.

The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases, which are well-measured, cause a strong positive (warming) forcing. But other, poorly measured, anthropogenic forcings, especially changes of atmospheric aerosols, clouds, and land-use patterns, cause a negative forcing that tends to offset greenhouse warming. One consequence of this partial balance is that the natural forcing due to solar irradiance changes may play a larger role in long-term climate change than inferred from comparison with greenhouse gases alone. Current trends in greenhouse gas climate forcings are smaller than in popular "business as usual" or 1%/yr CO2 growth scenarios. The summary implication is a paradigm change for long-term climate projections: uncertainties in climate forcings have supplanted global climate sensitivity as the predominant issue.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{ha07100z,
  author={Hansen, J. and Sato, M. and Lacis, A. and Ruedy, R. and Tegen, I. and Matthews, E.},
  title={Perspective: Climate forcings in the industrial era},
  year={1998},
  journal={Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences},
  volume={95},
  pages={12753--12758},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - ha07100z
AU  - Hansen, J.
AU  - Sato, M.
AU  - Lacis, A.
AU  - Ruedy, R.
AU  - Tegen, I.
AU  - Matthews, E.
PY  - 1998
TI  - Perspective: Climate forcings in the industrial era
JA  - Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
JO  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
VL  - 95
SP  - 12753
EP  - 12758
ER  -

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