Climate change ‘slow down’ was caused by lack of data

An apparent pause in global warming that spawned a decade-long controversy never took place, according to new data.

Between 1998 and 2012, the world is thought to have experienced a slower rise in temperatures.  

This ‘pause’ has been cited by climate skeptics as a sign that the climate is less sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought. 

But new research suggests the so-called global warming hiatus was the result of missing data from the Arctic, not a real downturn.

New research suggests the so-called global warming hiatus was the result of missing data from the Arctic, not a real downturn. These figures show the global warming rates with the incorporated Arctic data

And the more accurate data actually shows that the Arctic region is warming up five times quicker than the rest of the world.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and his colleagues in China constructed the first data set of surface temperatures from across the world that significantly improves representation of the Arctic during the ‘global warming hiatus.’

They analysed temperature data collected from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean.

Professor Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF’s International Arctic Research Centre, said: ‘ ‘We recalculated the average global temperatures from 1998-2012 and found that the rate of global warming had continued to rise at 0.112C per decade instead of slowing down to 0.05C per decade as previously thought.

‘We estimated a new rate of Arctic warming at 0.659 C per decade from 1998-2014.

‘Compared with the newly estimated global warming rate of 0.130 C per decade, the Arctic has warmed more than five time the global average.

‘The new data set and resulting estimates show conclusively that global warming did not take a break.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and his colleagues in China constructed the first data set of surface temperatures from across the world that significantly improves representation of the Arctic (pictured) during the 'global warming hiatus'

A University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and his colleagues in China constructed the first data set of surface temperatures from across the world that significantly improves representation of the Arctic (pictured) during the ‘global warming hiatus’

WHAT IS THE GLOBAL WARMING PAUSE? 

The global average temperature has risen only slightly since 1998 – which is surprising, considering scientific climate models predicted considerable warming due to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Some people used this apparent contradiction to question climate change per se – or at least the harm potential caused by greenhouse gases – as well as the validity of the climate models.

Meanwhile, the majority of climate researchers continued to emphasise that the short-term ‘warming hiatus’ could largely be explained on the basis of current scientific understanding and did not contradict longer term warming.

Recently, researchers have been looking into the possible causes of the warming hiatus over the past few years.

In a separate study, ETH Zurich recently concluded that two important factors are equally responsible for the hiatus. 

One of the important reasons is natural climate fluctuations, of which the weather phenomena El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific are the most important, they claim.

According to the study, the second important reason for the warming hiatus is that radiation from the sun has been weaker than predicted in the past few years.

The latest study recalculated the average global temperatures from 1998-2012 and found that the rate of global warming had continued to rise at 0.112C per decade instead of slowing down to 0.05C per decade as previously thought. 

‘It was missing Arctic temperature data, not Mother Nature, created the seeming slowdown of global warming from 1998 to 2012.’

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change incorporated new methods of working the Arctic temperature data into global temperature data so that they could better estimate the average temperatures.

Most current estimates use global data that tend to represent a long time span and provide good coverage of a global geographic area. But the remote Arctic lacks a robust network of instruments to collect temperature data.

So the team relied on temperature data collected from the International Arctic Buoy Program at the University of Washington and for global data, the team used newly corrected sea surface temperatures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This led to them rejecting the idea of a ‘global warming hiatus’ by reestimating the average global temperatures during that time period with more accurate and representative data.

The Earth’s average global temperatures have been rising over the past century and accelerating as more human produced carbon dioxide enters and lingers in the atmosphere, which is why the idea of ‘global warming hiatus’ seemed baffling.

Some scientists theorised that an unusually warm El Niño in the years 1997-1998 and an extended period afterwards without occurrence of El Nino in the tropical Pacific Ocean may have disrupted the rate of global warming.

It also highlights the importance of considering the Arctic when thinking about climate change.

Until recently many scientists didn’t consider the Arctic big enough to greatly influence the average global temperatures.

Prof Zhang added: ‘The Arctic is remote only in terms of physical distance.

‘In terms of science, it’s close to every one of us. It’s a necessary part of the equation and the answer affects us all.’

 

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