science activities

focus 1 climate forcings

This Focus fosters activities that aim to produce improved, extended, and consistent time series of climate forcing parameters, both natural and anthropogenic, including solar insolation and irradiance intensity, volcanic activity, land cover, sea ice, and greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations. Furthermore, Focus 1 aims to quantitatively understand the causes and impacts of variations in climate forcings.

Structure of Focus 1, showing the Themes (blue boxes) and Working Groups (grey text), and overlap with external programs (white boxes). For descriptions of program acronyms please see Acronym List

Overarching Questions
- How did the main climate forcing factors vary in the past?
- How sensitive was (and is) the climate system to these forcings?
- What caused the natural greenhouse gas and aerosol variations?
- In what precise sequence did changes in forcings, surface climate, and ecological systems occur?

Focus Leaders: Cathy Whitlock, Eric Wolf, Alan Mix and Hubertus Fischer

Focus 1 is divided into 2 Themes: Primary and Secondary Climate Forcings. The questions raised under each Theme are addressed by a number of Working Groups.

Working Groups
> Global Palaeofire Working Group (GPWG)
> PALSEA (Paleo-Constraints on Sea-Level Rise)

> Rationale and Goals
> Themes
> Meetings
> Products