SSF-Svalbard Science Forum

Observed 20th century global-mean surface temperature reflects the combined influences of natural climate variations and anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, sulfate aerosols, and land-use changes. A technique used extensively by the Intergovernme ntal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its assessment reports for distinguishing anthropogenic effects from natural variability, involves comparing observed climate change with the signature of anthropogenic climate change inferred from general circulatio n models (GCM's) forced with prescribed greenhouse gas concentrations and assumed solar and volcanic influence. However, there is at the moment uncertainty as to the importance of natural climate variations compared to the influence of anthropogene fact ors, even on modern climate change. Derived from this, there is uncertainty as to the ability of existing GCM's to reproduce correctly the background of natural climate variations, on which the anthropogene climate changes are playing out. A growing diver gence between GCM output and measured global temperature especially during the last 10-15 years underlines the importance of improving knowledge on the dynamics of natural climate variations. The planned workshop therefore aims at bringing together a gro up of scientist which are known to have investigated alternative ways of interpreting and modelling climate change. In many cases these scientist are working alone or in small research groups. This is a consequence of the fact that in most countries the g reenhouse-driven climate analysis approach has been dominating virtually all major climate research initiatives and funding possibilities during the last 15-20 years, leaving little or no funding possibilities for alternative approaches to climate analysi s. Bringing together this fragmented group of scientist to present their work and discuss cooperation are apt to generate a suite of new ideas, thereby improving the general knowledge of climate dynamics