Possible Explanation for Slowdown in Global Warming
According to a report published yesterday, scientists may have found the answer to the unpredicted slowing in the warming of global air temperatures. They had suspected that the heat was somehow winding up in the oceans, and it appears they are correct. But what does all this mean? I hope you’ll check out the report.
Ice.
Since the warming effect is naturally concentrated at the polls, there was a “tipping point” situation where it suddenly became too warm to keep the arctic ice pack stable.
Since 1998, we’ve seen the melt-off of tens of thousands of km3 of arctic ice. Phase change represents a change in energy state without a change in temperature. So this would be the equivalent of all the energy consumed by man since the dawn of the industrial age per ~month being absorbed by the arctic with no corresponding temperature change, and no corresponding ocean rise. It’s just phase change.
Meanwhile, alpine ice is rapidly diminishing which has led to more rapid seal level rise… and there has been deep ocean warming recorded in the North Atlantic (as reported here), and in the Pacific and South Atlantic (as has been reported elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the 2000’s were ~0.2 C warmer than the 1990’s, which were 0.2 C warmer than the 1980’2, and the 2010’s are initially looking to be significantly warmer than the 2000’s – though currently only ~0.1 C warmer (but there’s still plenty of years to expand upon that average.
The hiatus is a myth, people are just looking at too short a span and too little data.
That makes perfect sense. Thanks. Why do you think we hear so little about this?
Craig,
I would put it down to “more of the same” isn’t “news”. Stating that “things are moving forward at a constant pace” is dangerous to both sides: The fossil fuel companies are still taking advantage of the absurd anti-intelligence bubble that they have with their propaganda outlets and are trying to convince 50% of America to ignore high-school level science that is well understood… but the renewable lobby is even more threatened by “more of the same”… as it offers a depiction of global warming that doesn’t seem all that scary.
So neither side of the propaganda war wants to push the fact that we’ve been gradually and constantly warming while the Arctic ice has been vanishing… and it certainly isn’t “interesting” news that generates click-traffic…. So the data gets ignored and the news just reports what both sides choose to say in the propaganda wars.
That’s a guess, but it’s as good as any.
You’re 100% right here. I should have been more clear in my question, though. I meant: Why are people trying to solve the “hiatus” issue when the answer is the melting ice, i.e., the latent heat of fusion contained in tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of liquid water that used to be ice?