Global warming ‘pause’ gives ammo to skeptics’ argument


A slowdown in warming that has provided fuel for climate skeptics is one of the thorniest issues in a report to be issued by U.N. experts on Friday.

Over the past 15 years, the world’s average surface temperature rose far slower than many climate models have predicted.

According to projections, global warming should go in lockstep with the ever-rising curve of heat-trapping carbon emissions.

But in recent years, warming has lagged. So, where has the missing heat gone?

For climate skeptics, the answer is clear: Either the computer models used to project temperature rise are flawed, or man-made global warming is just a green scam.

The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will confirm warming has recently slowed.

The document, being debated line by line in Stockholm, is the first volume of a vast trilogy that will be released by the Nobel-winning group over the coming months, and only its fifth overview in a quarter of a century.

Over the past 50 years, the mean global temperature rise was 0.12 degree per decade, slowing to an average 0.05 degree per decade over the past 15 years.

Half of the slowdown could be attributed to volcanic eruptions, whose particles reflect sunlight, and a bigger-than-expected fall in heat from the sun’s changing activity cycle, a report summary said.

The other half is attributed to a “cooling contribution from internal variability.”

Laurent Terray, of the French computer modeling agency Cerfacs, said the term is used to explain a shift in the way heat is distributed between land, sea and air.

Still unclear is what causes the variation or determines its duration.

“We know that this kind of episode, of a decadal length or thereabouts, can occur once or twice a century,” said Terray.

“If it (the present one) continues for two more decades, we may start to think that the computer models are underestimating internal variability.”

New research by Britain’s Met Office suggests the “missing” heat, or some of it, is being transferred from the ocean surface to its depths. Temperatures at depths below 3,000 meters have been rising since the 1990s, implying a source of heat trapping today will contribute to warming tomorrow.

Governments, which have the right to vet and amend the summary but not the main text on which it is based, are looking with concern at the brief section on the warming pause.

This reflects jitters after the IPCC’s last big report in 2007 was shown to contain several background errors, denting the agency’s credibility.

The panel’s main conclusions were not affected but the mistakes were a windfall for skeptics.

Together with the 2008 financial crisis and the disastrous 2009 U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, this could send the fight against global warming into political limbo.

In comments attached to the IPCC summary draft, China, India and Norway want to know why the section dealing with the warming pause fails to refer to the role of the deep ocean.

Others complain the text is dangerous gobbledegook.

“This is an example of providing a bunch of numbers, then leave them up in the air without a concrete conclusion,” says an angry U.S. objection. “(T)he way it is written, it may set itself up for misleading conclusions.”

Some countries take the opposite line.

Hungary says an anomaly that has lasted 15 years — the blink of an eye on the geological time scale — is too short and laden with unknowns to even rate a mention.

The controversy touches on the sensitive issue of scientific uncertainty.

To scientists, admitting to uncertainty is not merely honest but entirely legitimate — something to be acknowledged and debated, to be rejected or overcome.

But admitting to uncertainty is often misunderstood by the outside world and, says Andreas Levermann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, exploited by skeptics.

“They can’t stop physical reality, but they are slowing down” tougher action on carbon emissions, he said in an interview.

Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), urged the IPCC draft to spell out what is known about the warming pause.

“Otherwise, the denialists will claim that the IPCC’s silence on this issue shows that global warming isn’t as serious as scientists thought,” he said in an email.

“The recent slowdown in temperature increases isn’t unprecedented, and should be seen as a ‘speed bump’ on the way to a warmer world.”

  • W douglas Driver

    I wonder if some of the missing heat has gone to melt ice. During state changes the heat goes to breaking intermolecular attractions and temperature does not change. Have we melted a significant amount of ice that would account for some of the missing energy?