Video: Slower temperature rise does not mean global warming has stopped
- 10 Jan 2013, 11:00
- Roz Pidcock
Natural and human influences are affecting the world's climate.
As a new video shows, if you subtract natural influences on global
temperature over the last 30 years - leaving only the human
influence - there's a steady warming trend. In other words,
human-caused global warming hasn't slowed or stopped.
When thinking about climate change, it's important to
differentiate between natural and human influences. Natural
fluctuations, like small changes in solar radiation, volcanic
eruptions and ocean circulation patterns, can affect global
temperatures from one year to the next by producing a short-lived
warming or a cooling effect.
At the moment, natural fluctuations in the climate are combining
to produce a strong cooling effect that is partially offsetting the
full extent of warming caused by greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. But human activity is still causing global warming -
that hasn't gone away.
As this video by climate science blog
Skeptical Science shows, if you take out all the natural
influences on global temperature that have occurred the last 30
years, leaving just the human component, you can see a steady
warming trend. In other words, there is no evidence that
human-induced global warming has slowed down.
What's more, as soon as the natural factors that are causing a
cooling effect weaken or reverse - and they will - the global
temperature is likely to rise much faster again.
The fact that natural factors can affect global temperature from
year to year is why scientists look at several decades of data
rather than just a few years, to see what's really happening to the
climate.