The evidence that human activity is causing global warming is much stronger than previously stated and is found in all parts of the world, according to a study that attempts to refute claims from sceptics.

The “fingerprints” of human influence on the climate can be detected not only in rising temperatures but also in the saltiness of the oceans, rising humidity, changes in rainfall and the shrinking of Arctic Sea ice at the rate of 600,000 sq km a decade.

The study, by senior scientists from the Met Office Hadley Centre, Edinburgh University, Melbourne University and Victoria University in Canada, concluded that there was an “increasingly remote possibility” that the sceptics were right that human activities were having no discernible impact. There was a less than 5 per cent likelihood that natural variations in climate were responsible for the changes.

The study said that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had understated mankind’s overall contribution to climate change. The IPCC had said in 2007 that there was no evidence of warming in the Antarctic. However, the panel said that the latest observations showed that man-made emissions were having an impact on even the remotest continent.

Continues: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7050341.ece