Checked content

File:Radiative-forcings.svg

Summary

Description Global average radiative forcing estimates and ranges in 2005 for anthropogenic greenhouse gases and other important agents and mechanisms.

Understanding global warming requires understanding the changes in climate forcings that have occurred since the industrial revolution. These include positive forcing from increased greenhouse gases, negative forcing from increased sulphate aerosols and poorly constrained forcings from indirect aerosol feedbacks as well as minor contributions from solar variability and other factors. The poorly constrained aerosol effects results from both limited physical understanding of how aerosols interact with the atmosphere and limited knowledge of aerosol concentrations during the pre-industrial period. This is a significant source of uncertainty in comparing modern climate forcings to past states.

Contrary to the impression given by this figure, it is not possible to simply sum the radiative forcing contributions from all sources and obtain a total forcing. This is because different forcing terms can interact to either amplify or interfere with each other. For example, in the case of greenhouse gases, two different gases may share the same absorption bands thus partially limiting their effectiveness when taken in combination.
Date
Source The figures used to generate this plot were obtained from the IPCC Working Group I Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers, page 16.
Author This figure was produced by Leland McInnes ( Radiative-forcings.svg) using gnuplot and Inkscape and is licensed under the GFDL. All data is from publicly available sources.
Permission
( Reusing this file)
Leland McInnes at the English language Wikipedia, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license:
GNU head Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

w:en:Creative Commons
attribution share alike		 This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Attribution: Leland McInnes at the English language Wikipedia
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
  • share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.
This licensing tag was added to this file as part of the GFDL licensing update.
The following pages on Schools Wikipedia link to this image (list may be incomplete):

Metadata

This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details may not fully reflect the modified file.

Did you know...?

All five editions of Schools Wikipedia were compiled by SOS Children's Villages. SOS Children believes education is an important part of a child's life. That's why we ensure they receive nursery care as well as high-quality primary and secondary education. When they leave school, we support the children in our care as they progress to vocational training or higher education. Want to learn more? Go to http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/sponsor-a-child