En gruppe forskere mener, at havene optager mere kuldioxid end forventet, og at det er årsagen til, at den hastige stigning i temperaturerne er bremset. Risikoen for ekstreme varmegrader på kloden er (lidt) mindre i de kommende årtier, end hvad man har frygtet.
Since 1998, there has been an unexplained “standstill” in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere, BBC online writes Sunday.
Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades – se også
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1836.html
But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly.
The new paper gives the clearest picture yet of how any slowdown is likely to affect temperatures in both the short-term and long-term.
The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (FNs Klimapanel) reported in 2007 that the short-term temperature rise would most likely be 1-3 Celsius
But in this new analysis, by only including the temperatures from the last decade, the projected range would be 0.9-2.0 C.
The authors calculate that over the coming decades global average temperatures will warm about 20 per cent more slowly than expected.
But when it comes to the longer term picture, the authors say their work is consistent with previous estimates. The IPCC said that climate sensitivity was in the range of 2.0-4.5C.
This latest research, including the decade of stalled temperature rises, produces a range of 0.9-5.0C.
The researchers say the difference can be explained by the fact that the heat from the last decade has been absorbed into and is being stored by the world’s oceans.
