Anthropogenic climate change
Cambio climático antropogénico
- Date
- 1938 / 1979 / 1988 · confidence high
- Place
- US Senate, Washington (Hansen's testimony) / Geneva (IPCC)
- Credited to
- Guy Callendar (1938), Syukuro Manabe (models, 1967), Charney Report (1979), James Hansen (1988), IPCC (1990-)
- People
- 👤 James Hansen1941–👤 Syukuro Manabe1931–
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Callendar linked observed warming with industrial CO2; Manabe modelled climate sensitivity; the Charney Report estimated 3°C per doubling; Hansen declared in 1988 that warming was already detectable. The 1995 IPCC report stated a 'discernible human influence'.
Coordinates of the Capitol, the setting of Hansen's testimony on 23 June 1988. Scientific consensus has exceeded 99% since the 2000s.
What it led to
- UN Framework Convention (1992), Kyoto (1997), Paris Agreement (2015)
- Energy transition and climate policy
- Organised denialism and public controversy
- 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics to Manabe and Hasselmann
Built on
Made possible
- General circulation models
- Extreme-event attribution