Climate Change Not Just a Natural Occurrence Based on Inconsistent Atmospheric Temperature Trends

As public concern about climate change continues to grow, new research has strengthened the case for a “human fingerprint” on rising temperatures. Until now, the connection between human activity and climate change had been identified through temperature differences between the troposphere and the lower stratosphere. However, a new study has found that such differences in the middle and upper stratosphere, 25 to 50 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, provide clearer evidence of human activity. The study claims that including that information was “enhancing detectability” of human impact by a factor of five, due to a large cooling signal from human-induced CO2 increases. This noise is particularly evident in the troposphere, while natural fluctuations are smaller in the upper stratosphere. The authors argue, it is now “virtually impossible” for natural factors to explain satellite-measured temperature trends.