Posted on 04/08/2013 5:55:59 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
OSLO (Reuters) - Climate change could get worse quickly if huge amounts of extra heat absorbed by the oceans are released back into the air, scientists said after unveiling new research showing that oceans have helped mitigate the effects of warming since 2000.
Heat-trapping gases are being emitted into the atmosphere faster than ever, and the 10 hottest years since records began have all taken place since 1998. But the rate at which the earth's surface is heating up has slowed somewhat since 2000, causing scientists to search for an explanation for the pause.
Experts in France and Spain said on Sunday that the oceans took up more warmth from the air around 2000. That would help explain the slowdown in surface warming but would also suggest that the pause may be only temporary and brief.
"Most of this excess energy was absorbed in the top 700 meters (2,300 ft) of the ocean at the onset of the warming pause, 65 percent of it in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic oceans," they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Lead author Virginie Guemas of the Catalan Institute of Climate Sciences in Barcelona said the hidden heat may return to the atmosphere in the next decade, stoking warming again.
"If it is only related to natural variability then the rate of warming will increase soon," she told Reuters.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
All the global warming in the world may not prevent the next ice age. Things naturally cool off.
Or... it COULD just rain more??
“Heat-trapping gases are being emitted into the atmosphere faster than ever, and the 10 hottest years since records began have all taken place since 1998. But the rate at which the earth’s surface is heating up has slowed somewhat since 2000, causing scientists to search for an explanation for the pause.”
What?
BUMP!
Can't you just see these so-called scientists "searching for an explanation"?
I love the smell of Commies panicking.
What else are there models missing? Their hockey stick graph can take a flying hike.
Some hysteric liberals now confess that decades ago they deliberately engaged in hyperbolic lies to sway the public “because it IS so important” (like Red Ted Danson).
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