How do we know that humans are the major cause of

global warming?
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) states: it is a greater than a 90 percent
certainty that emissions of heat-trapping gases from human activities
have caused most of the observed increase in globally averaged
temperatures since the mid-20th century.[1] We all know that
warmingand coolinghas happened in the past, and long before
humans were around. Many factors (called climate drivers) can
influence Earths climatesuch as changes in the suns intensity and
volcanic eruptions, as well as heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.
So how do scientists know that todays warming is primarily caused by
humans putting too much carbon in the atmosphere when we burn
coal, oil, and gas or cut down forests?

There are human fingerprints on carbon

overload. When humans burn coal, oil and gas (fossil fuels) to
generate electricity or drive our cars, carbon dioxide is released into
the atmosphere, where it traps heat. A carbon molecule that comes
from fossil fuels and deforestation is lighter than the combined
signal of those from other sources. As scientists measure the weight
of carbon in the atmosphere over time they see a clear increase in the
lighter molecules from fossil fuel and deforestation sources that
correspond closely to the known trend in emissions.[2,3]

Natural changes alone cant explain the temperature

changes weve seen. For a computer model to accurately project the
future climate, scientists must first ensure that it accurately
reproduces observed temperature changes. When the models include
only recorded natural climate driverssuch as the suns intensitythe
models cannot accurately reproduce the observed warming of the past
half century. When human-induced climate drivers are also included
in the models, then they accurately capture recent temperature
increases in the atmosphere and in the oceans.[4,5,6] When all the
natural and human-induced climate drivers are compared to one

another, the dramatic accumulation of carbon from human sources is

by far the largest climate change driver over the past half century.

Lower-level atmospherewhich contains the carbon

loadis expanding. The boundary between the lower atmosphere
(troposphere) and the higher atmosphere (stratosphere) has shifted
upward in recent decades. See the ozone FAQ for a figure illustrating
the layers of the atmosphere.[6,7,8] This boundary has likely changed
because heat-trapping gases accumulate in the lower atmosphere and
that atmospheric layer expands as it heats up (much like warming the
air in a balloon). And because less heat is escaping into the higher
atmosphere, it is likely cooling. This differential would not occur if the
sun was the sole climate driver, as solar changes would warm both
atmospheric layers, and certainly would not have warmed one while
cooling the other.

Direct evidence of human contribution to atmospheric

CO2
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main heat-trapping gas largely
responsible for most of the average warming over the past several
decades.[2] To compare how CO2 stacks up in influence to the many
other important heat-trapping gases contributing to climate change
see the CO2 FAQ. There is a way that scientists can tease apart the
atmospheric concentration of CO2 to see how much of the CO2 is from
natural sources and how much is from combusted fossil fuel sources.
The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased from a preindustrial era (AD 1000 1750) concentration of approximately 280
parts per million (ppm) to around 383 ppm, as measured at Mauna
Loa, Hawaii in 2007.[2,9] The carbon in the atmospheric CO2
contains information about its source, so that scientists can tell that
fossil fuel emissions comprise the largest source of the increase since
the pre-industrial era.
Heres how scientists know. The same elements (i.e. same number of
protons in the nucleus) with different mass numbers (arising from the
different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus) are called isotopes. Each
carbon molecule has six protons in the nucleus, but there are many

different isotopes with varying numbers of neutrons in the nucleus.

[10] Carbon isotopes from different sources are lighter (high
negative value) or heavier (lower negative value). For example, carbon
from ocean is the standard with a value of 0 while carbon from fossil
fuels ranges from -20 to -32.[11] While atmospheric carbon has an
average value of -5 to -9, it is becoming lighter over time as carbon
from fossil fuels become more abundant in the atmosphere (Figure 1).
[9,11,12]
Figure 1. Direct Evidence of Fossil Fuel Derived CO2 in the
Atmosphere