Global warming? No, actually we're cooling, claim scientists

[cheapdate]

29. A junk report in the Telegraph to distort the actual scientific understanding of climate trends.

Observations over the past 5 years have shown a slowing down in the rate of warming. The actual warming rate over the past five years has been around 0.17 degC/decade. The mean warming rate predicted by the latest models was 0.23 degC/decade. The observed rate of warming is still within the predicted envelope -- it's just on the low side.

Despite what "some scientists" (who?) might allegedly suggest, a five year trend is not believed by the vast majority of climate scientists to be significant in the long term (the "long term" being the very definition of climate).

A minority of climate scientists have suggested that surface temperatures may be slightly less sensitive to carbon dioxide than the present models allow. But the general consensus is that five years of less than expected warming is not a falsification of our entire understanding of how "greenhouse gases" influence the planet's temperature.

Most scientists attribute the less than expected warming to a combination of a period of solar minimum and temporary ocean circulation patterns in the Pacific. We will be returning to a solar maximum in a few years and many scientists expect the warming to get back on pace, possibly aggressively.