Allowing for solar forcing in the detection of human influence on tropospheric temperatures

Previous workers have used the radiosonde record of atmospheric vertical te mperature structure to detect anthropogenic influence on climate [e.g. Sant er et al., 1996a]. However, none of these studies explicitly considered the influence of natural forcing factors. Whilst decadal changes of radiative solar activity are small, they could be amplified by various mechanisms (e. g. Haigh, 1996), potentially accounting for a significant fraction of the o bserved signal. Gillett et al.[2000] show that the diagnostics used to dete ct anthropogenic influence on atmospheric temperature structure are strongl y influenced by solar forcing. Here we repeat the analysis of Alien and Tet t, [1999] (AT99) including a model-simulated solar signal, to assess whethe r the observed tropospheric warming might be explained by solar forcing and the observed stratospheric cooling by the effects of ozone depletion. It t ranspires that previously reported results are robust to the inclusion of s olar forcing since the greenhouse gas response is detectable even in the pr esence of solar forcing and stratospheric ozone depletion, allowing for an arbitrary amplitude of both solar and ozone signals.