anthropogenic, definition of

Anthropogenic

Human made. In the context of greenhouse gases, emissions that are produced as the result of human activities.

EcoWho blog posts where 'anthropogenic' used:News & Blog articles where 'anthropogenic' used:
  • Climate change identified as the root of California’s hot, dry winters
    As hot and dry weather continue to be the norm in California this winter, a recently published paper places the blame for the drought squarely on anthropogenic climate change...
  • Introducing the WUWT CO2 Reference Page
    Guest Post by WUWT Regular “Just The Facts” While the Pause in Earth’s temperature continues, currently 17 years and 10 months based upon RSS satellite data, it is important to note that Fossil Fuel and Cement CO2 emissions are at their...
  • Observations From The WUWT Sea Ice Page
    Image Credit: Cryosphere Today – University of Illinois – Polar Research Group By WUWT Regular Just The Facts Global Sea Ice Area, shown above, has remained quite average this year...
  • Global warming is epic, long-term study says
    Image Credit: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center From CNN with comments below by WUWT regular Just The Facts: Global warming has propelled Earth’s climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest …...
  • Sea Ice Page Upgrades, Observations and Questions
    By WUWT regular “Just The Facts” In making a couple upgrades to the Sea Ice Page, I made a few observations, and a few questions arose. Firstly, several weeks ago the following exchange occurred on a Sea Ice News thread: … Continue reading →
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Anthropogenic Global Warming

Often abbreviated to just AGW. This is global warming which has been caused by human activity in addition to natural global warming.

The science around this is difficult to prove, as identifying a clear indicator of the human contribution which is independent of multiple natural causes is very hard to do in reality. The human element to global warming needs to be clearly and precisely measured against a background of natural global warming that has been occurring since the last ice age. 


Given the, until recent (last 20 years), lack of good direct measurement of the climatic system; a lot of dependence has been placed on proxy measurements, which often have high inherent error and many secondary effects that need to be taken into account. 

Temperature measurement is further complicated by the fact that a global temperature is a 'synthetic measurement'; i.e. it cannot be directly observed 'as is' instantaneously globally, it has to be calculated from sparse measurements (both in time and space) of temperature from multiple locations with differing local environmental conditions. Again this incurs additional errors and growing uncertainty.

News & Blog articles where 'anthropogenic' used:
  • Aussie Mining Billionaire Gina Rinehart Warns Students About Climate Propaganda
    Iconic self made billionaire Gina Rinehart has warned school students against allowing climate propaganda to erode their critical thinking skills, urged them to guard against propaganda intruding on real education, and explained to Anglican School students...
  • An Engineer’s Take On Major Climate Change
    Guest essay by Ronald D. Voisin Let’s examine, at a high and salient level, the positive-feedback Anthropogenic Global Warming, Green-House-Gas Heating Effect (AGW-GHGHE) with its supposed pivotal role for CO2. The thinking is that a small increase...
  • On The Hijacking of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
    Guest post by Bill Gray Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University (AMS Fellow, Charney Award recipient, and over 50-year member) June 2011 I am very disappointed at the downward path the AMS has been following for the last 10-15 years in … Continue...
  • Anyone up for a spot of red kite shooting?
    Though I’m aware that taking pot shots at birds of prey is generally considered unsporting, there are so many in the part of mid-Wales I’m staying right now that I think they almost qualify as a pest...

Related Tags: global warming, climate change

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What is anthropogenic?
anthropogenic definition.
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