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GPT-5Oct 26, 2026openai/gpt-5-2025-08-07
Are humans responsible for climate change?
Yes. Human activities are the dominant cause of the recent warming of Earth’s climate.
Why scientists are confident:
•Greenhouse gases from burning coal, oil, and gas (plus deforestation and some agriculture) have raised atmospheric CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide, strengthening the greenhouse effect.
•“Fingerprints” match greenhouse warming: the lower atmosphere warms while the stratosphere cools; nights and winters warm faster than days and summers; land warms more than oceans; the Arctic warms fastest.
•The carbon added to the air has a fossil-fuel isotopic signature and coincides with a measured decline in atmospheric oxygen from combustion.
•Climate models only reproduce the observed warming trend when human emissions are included; natural factors alone (solar changes, volcanoes) can’t explain it.
•Earth’s energy imbalance and the rapid increase in ocean heat content show extra heat accumulating in the climate system, consistent with greenhouse forcing.
In short, virtually all of the global warming since the mid-20th century is due to human influence.