The impacts of external forcing, including natural and anthropogenic, on the 20th century global warming were assessed with the use of the Grid Atmospheric Model of IAP/LASG Version 1.1.0, following the standard coordinated experiment design of the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) International Climate of the Twentieth Century Project (C20C), Phase II. The results indicate that external forcing plays an important role in the evolution of the land surface air temperature on interannual, decadal, and interdecadal time scales, and contributes greatly to the global warming in the following two periods: the early twentieth century between the 1910s and the 1940s and the late twentieth century after the 1970s. External forcing also has strong impact on the regional temperature change during the two warming periods except for parts of the Eurasia and the North America continents. In the cooling period, however, the impact of internal variability is dominant.