This would place an even greater stress on global ecosystems, displacing many species, causing desertification in lower latitudes and perhaps increasing agricultural production in higher latitudes. (IPCC, 2002).
But why is the earth warming at such a greatly accelerated rate, not seen in the past 10,000 years? This question becomes hugely important when modeling future climate changes. Much of the recent focus has been on anthropogenic causes of climate change, including the release of so-called greenhouse gasses, land use changes, and the increased use of livestock for human protein intake. However, many fluctuations in global climate prior to the industrial revolution cannot be attributed to anthropogenic causes. Therefore, there must be underlying natural factors contributing to climate change. .
This brings about a question of even greater importance: How much of the increase in global temperature from 1860 to 2000 is due to anthropogenic causes, and how much is due to natural causes? The Causes of 20th Century Warming seeks to answer this question. Essentially, Zwiers and Weaver come to the conclusion that anthropogenic causes, moderated by natural climate fluctuations and natural forcing have produced climate change as observed in the 20th Century. .
Whenever making predictions about widespread changes in the global climate, there is going to be a degree of error involved. This is partially because the anthropogenic factors can not easily be predicted, and so they must be placed into different scenarios, or sets of predictions. While no less complex, natural causes of climate change are not typically separated into scenarios, because these natural causes are typically linear. That is, natural actions are not governed by national and international policy decisions as are human actions are. (Bolin, 2001) Even so, there is error in accounting for these natural causes because of the breadth of natural factors involved that affect global climate.