Study: Global Warming Has Slowed But Could Heat Up Again
Friday, 24 Apr 2015 10:18 AM
By Andrea Billups
A study led by Duke University of 1,000 years of temperature records has shown that global warming is not occurring as fast as some have suggested, the U.K.'s Daily Mail reported.
"Based on our analysis, a middle-of-the-road warming scenario is more likely, at least for now," Patrick Brown, a doctoral student in climatology at Duke University, said of the analysis of the research. "But this could change."
The analysis, which compared results with scenarios suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and relied on observed data, not climate models, determined that high and low warming rates that occur over a decade are a part of the "natural variability in surface temperatures," the Daily Mail said.
It also found that temperature shifts are the result of ocean-atmosphere interactions and other natural factors.
This natural balance, however, could shift, the scientists warn, and the "climate wiggles" seen over the years could change, forcing Earth to warm at a faster speed than expected, the study said.
"At any given time, we could start warming at a faster rate if greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere increase without any offsetting changes in aerosol concentrations or natural variability," said Wenhong Li, assistant professor of climate at Duke, who worked with Brown on the climate change study.
Another study, published in the journal Science last year, also said climate change was slowing as a part of an ongoing cycle, Time magazine reported.
That study found that "temperatures have risen more slowly in the past decade than in the previous 50 years, and will continue to rise at a somewhat slower rate in the next decade," Time said.
But it attributed that change to heat moving "into deeper oceans." After the current cycle is finished, warming could pick up at a fast rate, Time said of the latest research.
"Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850," according to a separate study published by the IPCC in 2013.
"Trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends," the study said.
Read Latest Breaking News from http://Newsmax.com www.newsmax.com/Newsfront.../id/640540/#ixzz3YGJ1dVMr
Poster Comment:
AlGore is a nut. ;)