"Has Global Warming Stopped?" is probably one of those annoying questions that you constantly hear and debate, but never get an answer to. Well, a new study may shed some light on one of the most controversial aspects of the current global warming debate, The Street reported.
The short answer is and always has been "no," it hasn't stopped. It hasn't even slowed down.
Sea levels continue to rise inexorably. While Arctic Sea ice and Antarctic glacier cover continue their shrinking trends, weather patterns continue to change dramatically.
But let's go back in the past.
Since the outset of the Industrial Revolution, global surface temperatures have been rising more or less.
Presumably this rise in temperatures is linked to the correlating rise in CO2 and other heat-trapping gasses in the troposphere, the layer of atmosphere closest to the earth, The Street reported.
However, beginning about 2001, those surface atmosphere temperatures have flattened out in recent years for reasons scientists haven't been able to fully explain.
"Skeptics of global warming science love this: It seems to undercut the findings of the scientific mainstream and throw the whole question of long-term global warming into the trash heap," The Street reported. "If CO2 emissions were causing global warming, then surface temperatures should continue to rise. Since they haven't, global warming can't be real."
This change in global warming has been termed as a "pause" or a "hiatus" by skeptics.
As recently as Feb. 3, in Forbes, this anomaly in the data was being touted as evidence that climate scientists have "oversold" the risks of climate change.
But even while the anomaly in the data may pose no threat to global warming models generally, its cause remained a mystery.
Recently, equatorial trade winds that are much stronger than expected have been pushing the warmer surface in the Pacific westward, a team of scientists led by Australian Matt England found. The study was published in the most recent issue of Nature Climate Change, a scientific peer-review journal.
As the warmed surface water hits the western continental shelf, it is driven downward into the lower depths. By mixing the heat into the deep water, the action of the trade winds effectively cools the observable surface temperature, according to The Street.
"The oceans have this amazing capacity to suck up heat," England said in a phone interview from his home in Australia Wednesday. "The ocean absorbs 90 percent of the heat of the climate system, so if you're looking for global warming that's where you have to look."
While overall global warming predictions are panning out accurately, "I think we've discovered that the models are coming up short in terms of decadal variability," England said.
