Climate Change: The Need to Consider Human Forcings Besides Greenhouse Gases

Humans are recognized as having a major role in influencing environmental variability and change, including their influence on the climate system. To advance scientists' understanding of the role of humans within the climate system, there remains a need to resolve which of the following three hypotheses is correct: Hypothesis 1: Human influence on climate variability and change is of minimal importance, and natural causes dominate climate variations and changes on all time scales. In coming decades, the human influence will continue to be minimal.