Box TS.4 Figure 1 - AR4 WGII Technical Summary

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	IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007

Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

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The panel above shows the results from a study employing this methodology^[9]. The locations for the modelled temperatures were individual grid boxes corresponding to given animal and plant study sites and time periods.

The agreement (in overlap and shape) between the observed (blue bars) and modelled plots is weakest with natural forcings, stronger with anthropogenic forcings, and strongest with combined forcings. Thus, observed changes in animals and plants are likely responding to both natural and anthropogenic climate forcings, providing a direct cause-and-effect linkage [F1.7, 1.4.2.2].

^ Plotted are the frequencies of the correlation coefficients (associations) between the timing of changes in traits (e.g., earlier egg-laying) of 145 species and modelled (HadCM3) spring temperatures for the grid-boxes in which each species was examined. At each location, all of which are in the Northern Hemisphere, the changing trait is compared with modelled temperatures driven by: (a) Natural forcings (pink bars), (b) anthropogenic (i.e., human) forcings (orange bars), and (c) combined natural and anthropogenic forcings (yellow bars). In addition, on each panel the frequencies of the correlation coefficients between the actual temperatures recorded during each study and changes in the traits of 83 species, the only ones of the 145 with reported local-temperature trends, are shown (dark blue bars). On average the number of years species were examined is about 28 with average starting and ending years of 1960 to 1998. Note that the agreement: a) between the natural and actual plots is weaker (K=60.16, p>0.05) than b) between the anthropogenic and actual (K=35.15, p>0.05), which in turn is weaker than c) the agreement between combined and actual (K=3.65, p<0.01). Taken together, these plots show that a measurable portion of the warming regional temperatures to which species are reacting can be attributed to humans, therefore showing joint attribution (see Chapter 1).