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Global energy budget

Elusive origin of warming slowdown

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 316–317 (2017)Cite this article

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Global surface warming was slower than expected in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Research attributes similar events to ocean or atmosphere fluctuations, but the subtle origins of these events may elude observational detection.

Historical records in global warmth and severe weather extremes experienced during 2016 were the culmination of a long-term warming trend caused by human activities, boosted by the natural El Niño climate event. Yet the first decade of the twenty-first century experienced slow increases in global average surface temperature relative to the preceding two decades and compared with most climate model simulations1. When accounting for deficiencies in radiative forcing or surface temperature records2, chaotic climate fluctuations are centre stage in explaining this discrepancy3 yet their exact origin remains elusive. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Christopher Hedemann and colleagues4 present a step towards understanding the root causes of periods experiencing slower-than-expected planetary warming.

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Figure 1: Hiatus in surface warming and the upper-ocean heat budget.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Richard P. Allan is at the Department of Meteorology, Whiteknights, University of Reading, Earley Gate, PO Box 243, Reading RG6 6BB, UK,

    Richard P. Allan

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  1. Richard P. Allan
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Correspondence to Richard P. Allan.

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Allan, R. Elusive origin of warming slowdown. Nature Clim Change 7, 316–317 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3282

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