Rising temperatures in California...

"...attributed to human activities."

Washington, Jan 20: A new research by scientists has shown that the temperatures in the state of California in US have risen by more than 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit between 1915 and 2000, largely because of human activities.

The research, which was conducted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the University of California, Merced and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, used data from up to eight different observational records to come up with the findings.

According to the findings, the warming of the state, which has been fastest in late winter and early spring, is largely attributed to human activities.

"The trends in daily minimum and maximum temperatures over the last 50 and 85 years are inconsistent with current model-based estimates of natural internal climate variability," said lead researcher Céline Bonfils from Lawrence Livermore.

"It's pretty clear that natural causes alone just can't cut it and external factors such as greenhouse gases and urbanization come into play," he added.

"Our study represents a credible first step toward the identification of the effects of human activities on California climate," said Benjamin Santer, also part of the Livermore team...

"If human-induced climate change is occurring, societal impacts - such as impacts on our water supply - cannot be far behind," said Duffy.