Printer friendly version Man, volcanoes and the Sun have
influenced Europe's climate over recent centuries 19 January
2011 An International research team has discovered that seasonal
temperatures in Europe, above all in winter, have been affected
over the past 500 years by natural factors such as volcanic
eruptions and solar activity, and by human activities such as
the emission of greenhouse gases. The study could help us to
better understand the dynamics of climate change. Up until now,
it was thought that Europe's climate prior to 1900 was barely
affected by external factors, but now a group of scientists has
shown that natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions or solar
radiation, as well as human emissions of aerosols and greenhouse
gases, have had an impact on the evolution of Europe's climate
over the past five centuries. "The influence of the increase in
levels of greenhouse gases, in particular, can be clearly seen
since the end of the 17th Century", Jesús Fidel González Rouco,
a physicist at the C