2014 Greenland ice mass increases Sept. 1-Nov. 29, 2014 over same period in recent years-DMI

11/30/14, "Autumn Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Gain At A Record High," Steven Goddard 

Blue line shows ice growth from Sept. 1, 2014 to Nov. 29, 2014. Date "2014 29/11" is noted near top of DMI page above two Greenland maps. Scroll down for following graph: 

"The Greenland Ice Sheet gained a record amount of ice and snow this autumn – more than 200 billion tons. This lowers sea level, and is the exact opposite of what experts forecast, and say is happening.

Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI

This is a big change from 1940, when the glaciers of Greenland were rapidly melting and nearing a catastrophe.

 











 
06 May 1940 – Greenland’s Climate Becoming Milder"

Courier-Mail, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 5/6/1940





=====================

Added: DMI, Danish Meteorological Institute text notes a net Greenland ice loss over the last decade. 10 years doesn't constitute a climate trend, but if Greenland had only existed for 10 years, in its 11th year, 2014, it would be getting some ice back:

"Current Surface Mass Budget of the Greenland Ice Sheet," DMI

"Satellite observations over the last decade show that the ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr."

Via Steven Goddard commenters:

"d.w. says:
 

November 30, 2014 at 5:56 pm 

“Satellite observations over the last decade show that the ice sheet is not in balance. The calving loss is greater than the gain from surface mass balance, and Greenland is losing mass at about 200 Gt/yr.”
Quoted from that article. This is also a model based on input data and that model has recently changed making comparisons to older model outputs less than ideal.

Reply

David A says:

November 30, 2014 at 7:59 pm 

dw, gravometric studies The error bars are very very large."

===================

Comment: Since imagined global warming has been on "hiatus" for at least 15 years and scientists say "the slowdown" may continue until at least 2033, Greenland isn't about to melt:

"Cooling periods associated with the latter deeper heat-sequestration mechanism historically lasted 20 to 35 years." Meaning ongoing pause could continue until 2033 (1998 + 35= 2033).
 
8/21/14, "Global warming slowdown 'could last another decade'," BBC, Matt McGrath

"The hiatus in the rise in global temperatures could last for another 10 years, according to new research."...  

================

It would take 3000 years for Greenland to melt if a steady warm breeze blew over it constantly-2011 Nature study:

1/26/2011, "Greenland ice sheet is safer than scientists previously thought," UK Guardian, Damian Carrington
.
"New study overturns fears that increased melting could lubricate the ice sheet, causing it to sink ever faster into the sea."
.
""The Greenland ice sheet is safer than we thought," said Professor Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, who led the research published tomorrow in Nature....

.

"The Greenland ice sheet studied by Shepherd's team is up to 1,000m (3,280ft) thick. If the entire ice sheet melted, sea levels would rise by a catastrophic seven metres, but this is likely to take 3,000 years if warm air blowing over the ice is the only way in which the ice melts."... 
.

===================

Comment #2: You may wish to dust off your resume if you're making a living in the fabulously funded CO2 scare industry. 





 

German Greens face political extinction. Children of Lenin and the Club of Rome, purified Maoists, Trotskyists, hardcore Communists, travel by air more than voters of any other party-Die Welt

11/24/14, "Apocalypse Comes Spring - the Greens are running out of topics," Die Welt,  Ulf Poschardt, Deputy Chief Editor, Commentary. google translation from German  
 

"There is merit as weakness of the Greens, owe their existence to a split zeitgeist. To date, he separates the party more than the disagreement between fundamentalists and realists. Origin is the future, especially in the countryside. They are the children of Lenin and the Club of Rome.  

Uncle Sam represented in the left-wing narrative that is progressive, drunk, macho and authoritarian. Mother Nature represented by the environmentalism of the Club of Rome, is anti-modern, emancipated - and actually authoritarian. Both schools of thought have a penchant for the Apocalypse.

 

In the historical materialism of the destruction of the bourgeois world was anticipated in the course of the world revolution, the environmentalism resulted in a "unhappy end", where people only when the last tree has been cut, the last river poisoned, the last fish is caught, would realize you can not eat money.

 

The Greens have both operated and fueled social and ecological fears. Whether or acid rain forest dieback, ozone hole or nuclear energy - the Greens were and are masters of the inner needs of the Germans, so irrational as they may be to use. The disruption of the Green reflects their constituents and the country. Germany, which are poets and thinkers, but also natural romantics and engineers, waste separator and speeders, Neuland meat fetishists and Aldi savers.
. 

Often Green was an invisibility cloak for red

. 

Who chose the open, then felt better. He had done something good, saved the world a bit. The land of the - some of unbridled - economic miracle was missed a meritorious sustainability guardrail, the relentless use of resources attacked before the controlling departments of the companies did so for reasons of efficiency.

 

Since political parties like how the CSU realized early Christian motifs from the protection of creation as directions for action and the FDP ownership of the consumer in its ecological dimension - it was the Greens, who were thus identified since the early 80s. The name helped. He was clear and unambiguous.

 

Often Green was only the cloak of invisibility for red. Theoretically alive was the heritage left by the Greens. The Greens are today smartest purified Maoists, Trotskyists, hardcare communists. The intellectual brilliance of Trittin was quite the solution of the social question, redistribution, and a bourgeois anti-capitalism committed. The Ecological had taught him. After the retirement of alpha animals such as Trittin and Claudia Roth, the new leadership of the Green wanders through the political landscape.

This also has the lack of employment and often inadequate to deal with the cultural history of ecological thinking. The Greens are mainly the children of Martin Heidegger in their leitmotif. The still controversial German philosopher of the 20th century was revolutionary and conservative at the same time, the sharpest critics of modern technology and its alienation tornadoes.

 

"Rule of the frame" called the Swabian wooden hut dwellers the dictates of engineers. You should be terminated by a "Return". This bend understand Heidegger as the most unlikely case of world events. She was a kind of miracle, something that can only succeed if people are torn from their "forgetfulness of Being".

 

The Greens were obviously more pragmatic. She channeled the popular and populist reservations technology and modern life and beat understandable solutions. It called for no Heideggerian turn, but only a departure from the technology and a retreat to a more conscious, more modest life that left less CO2 traces on the planet.

 

This was also an ethical compensation for their affluent voters. To date, Travelling green voters and especially much more by air than the voters of any other party. Was seen and Green Select a penance for those who still consume better qua income - and do it well.
. 

There is a risk of stress fracture

. 

The green flagship municipalities have totalized junk charm the left WG. Whether free Republic of Wendland or the eco-district in Freiburg-Vauban: The green painted remix of the bourgeois status quo seems getting old. The loss of beauty and harmony through the blessings of modernity have other illustrated.

 

Hollywood, for example. Blockbusters such as "2001", "The Dances with Wolves" and especially the pop-heideggerianische masterpiece "The Last Samurai" reflected the ratio of progress, happiness and modernity exciting and more profound than the noisy barren and often opportunistic debates of the countryside.

 

In the fourth decade of its existence, the apocalyptic narrative approaches an end. There is a risk of stress fracture. The mantra-like invocation of doom has hardly excitation potential. And the much-maligned art shines with discoveries that were formerly classified in the mythical realm of science fiction.
. 

Conversion of CO2 into oil and gasoline

. 

Nuclear fusion could in ten years, provide energy, architects build skyscrapers that produce more energy than they consume, 900-horsepower sports car can be moved with three liters of gasoline, the conversion of CO2 into oil and gasoline is on the verge of series production.

 

Contemporary capitalism has adopted the innovation challenge by the ecology. Green thinkers like Ralf Fücks have recognized this, without sacrificing their apocalypticism. The Hyperrealos in the southwest of the country to discover the SMEs as an authentic resource saver and efficiency magician.

 

The party at the weekend has shown that the Greens run out of topics after the nuclear phase-out and the mainstream environmentalism. Anton Hofreiters effort to promote the "Return" in agriculture, goes in the right direction. But capitalism has long recognized this. The Greens will it hardly needed.

 

They begin to sound like a nostalgic project. The Zeitgeist after 40 years Apocalypse tired of pessimism. Engineers and scientists swim in a sea of ​​hopes and concrete breakthroughs. Who needs the Greens still when air, water and food are clean?" via Climate Depot, via No Tricks Zone

"Green Party members clean up the podium," AP

. 

 

 

Remains of giant penguin found in New Zealand, 4 ft. 3 in. bird lived 28 million years ago when New Zealand was largely underwater-BBC

11/28/14, "New Zealand: Giant penguin bones lay in shed for years," BBC

"A giant penguin that would have towered above today's largest species has been discovered in a New Zealand university's storage shed, it's been reported.

The fossilised bones of the as-yet unnamed bird had remained in storage at Auckland University since 1971, until the advent of 3D printing helped experts confirm that it was "almost certainly" a new type of giant penguin, Radio New Zealand International reports. The new technology meant that Dr Daniel Thomas was able to scan the bones to an American palaeontologist, and they were able to determine the bird would have stood at least 30cm taller than an emperor penguin, and taller than the extinct Kairuku penguin, whose remains were identified in 2012. "I imagine an emperor would have run away scared," Dr Thomas said, pointing out that he was still unsure if the 4ft 3in (1.3m) specimen was a juvenile or an adult.

The New Zealand Herald said that the new species was the first of its kind to be found on North Island, and the specimen dates back 28 million years to a time when New Zealand was largely underwater. The storage shed at the university may still yield other discoveries, Dr Thomas said. "It turned out there was a raft of other specimens as well - it was a treasure trove of some really incredible stuff," he told the paper."

==========================

11/28/14, "Ancient penguin was a giant of NZ birdlife," New Zealand Herald, Jamie Morton

"It was likely the bird would have been a deep-diving penguin, like the emperor, and been preyed upon by sharks and dolphins."...





.

After much delay EPA quietly postpones setting biofuel standards, a clear signal that outdated George Bush ethanol and biofuel laws should be revisited-NY Times

11/21/14, "E.P.A. Postpones Setting Standards for Biofuel Blends," NY Times, Diane Cardwell

"The Environmental Protection Agency quietly announced on Friday that, after much delay, it had been unable to decide this year on a rule setting levels for the amount of biofuel it would require to be blended into conventional vehicle fuels.

Because of the delay, a spokeswoman said in a statement, the agency will not take up the rule, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard,, until next year, when it seeks to set levels for 2015 and 2016.

A notice posted on the E.P.A. website said that the agency’s proposal, released last year, to reduce biofuel targets had “generated significant comment and controversy,” especially over how the biofuel targets should be set and whether it would be effective in, “achieving the volumes of renewable fuel targeted by the statute.” Given continued consideration of those issues, the notice said, the agency would not reach a decision this year.

The notice also said the agency would adjust reporting requirements so refiners could comply retroactively. The decision not to decide is the latest setback in a long line of economic, legal and logistical hurdles the agency has faced since it started requiring increasing levels of ethanol to be incorporated into vehicle fuel under energy laws passed in 2005 and 2007. Much has changed since then, when American dependence on foreign oil was high, and so were prices.

Now, however, the country is awash in domestic oil from shale drilling, while more efficient cars and an anemic economy have cut demand. The market is saturated with regular corn ethanol, while production of cellulosic, or so-called advanced, biofuel — made from nonfood parts of corn plants or other biomass like wood waste — has fallen short of what the mandate requires refiners to use.

“A lot of the motivation for biofuels is gone,” said Michael E. Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. “I think this delay is not just a stall tactic. I think the E.P.A. really doesn’t know what to do. They need to kind of give it another year to figure out, ‘Well does this biofuels policy make sense anymore?’”

On Friday, supporters and opponents of increased biofuel production expressed a rare consensus that the E.P.A.’s move was a punt and that the rule needed to be fixed, whether they were in favor of revision or repeal.

Michael McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuels Association, a trade group, said, “We’re still in suspended animation, and the uncertainty is just kicked down the road.”

Jeff Lautt, the chief executive of Poet, a corn ethanol producer that recently opened a cellulosic plant, said through a spokesman that the company was “pleased the administration did not finalize the flawed proposed rule” but was unsure if officials would avoid provisions that could stifle advanced biofuel development going forward.

Others said that this latest wrinkle was a clear signal that Congress should revisit the law.

“It’s not a good signal that they can’t get this done,” said Mike Lavender, a policy analyst at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that is in favor of biofuels but is critical of corn ethanol. “The only real option at this point is in 2015 for Congress to take up the reins and take a serious look at reform.”"

Page B2 of NY edition, 11/22/14 

 

 

.

2014 is ninth year in a row US is without a major hurricane, longest since Civil War era, below average temperatures in Atlantic Ocean cited. Wilma in 2005 last major hurricane to make US landfall. Sandy wasn't a hurricane when it reached US land-Reuters

11/24/14, "Quiet Atlantic hurricane season spares U.S. for ninth year running," Reuters, Zachary Fagenson, Miami

"A combination of cooler seas and a quiet West African monsoon season made for a less active Atlantic hurricane season, giving the South and East Coasts of the United States one of their lengthiest reprieves in history from a major hurricane, forecasters said on Monday.

"This is the longest without a major hurricane hitting the U.S. since the Civil War era," said Jeff Masters, chief meteorologist for Weather Underground.

The Atlantic Basin, which includes the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, saw only eight named storms, including six hurricanes, two of which reached major Category 3 status, during the season that began June 1 and closes Nov. 30, according to an end of season summary by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The two major storms - considered to be Category 3 or above with winds hitting at least 111 mph (178 kph) - included Gonzalo, which pummeled Bermuda. The other Category 3, Edouard, never threatened land but was the first major storm to form in the Atlantic since superstorm Sandy in 2012. Wilma in 2005 was the last major hurricane to make U.S. landfall. Sandy was not a hurricane by the time it reached land.

Only one hurricane made U.S. landfall this year, Arthur, which grazed the Outer Banks of North Carolina with 100 mph (160 kph) winds, disrupting the July 4 holiday weekend. 

“There’s been a whole sequence of conditions that suppress these storms,” said Gerry Bell, NOAA’s lead seasonal hurricane forecaster.

Among factors that tamped down storm formation were below-average temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and an active Pacific storm season that saw more than 20 named storms in its most active season since 1992.

“It’s a seesaw effect; often when the Atlantic is more active the Pacific will be suppressed,” Bell said..

At the start of the season forecasters had predicted up to 13 tropical storms with winds topping 39 mph (63 kph), and at least one major storm."...via Drudge

==========================

==========================

NOAA had predicted near normal or below normal 2014 season:

5/22/14, "NOAA predicts near-normal or below-normal 2014 Atlantic hurricane season," noaa.gov

"El Niño expected to develop and suppress the number and intensity of tropical cyclones."

"In its 2014 Atlantic hurricane season outlook issued today, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a near-normal or below-normal season. 

The main driver of this year’s outlook is the anticipated development of El Niño this summer. El Niño causes stronger wind shear, which reduces the number and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes. El Niño can also strengthen the trade winds and increase the atmospheric stability across the tropical Atlantic, making it more difficult for cloud systems coming off of Africa to intensify into tropical storms. 

The outlook calls for a 50 percent chance of a below-normal season, a 40 percent chance of a near-normal season, and only a 10 percent chance of an above-normal season.  For the six-month hurricane season, which begins June 1, NOAA predicts a 70 percent likelihood of 8 to 13 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 3 to 6 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 1 to 2 major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of 111 mph or higher). 

These numbers are near or below the seasonal averages of 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes, based on the average from 1981 to 2010. The Atlantic hurricane region includes the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico....

Humberto was the first of only two Atlantic hurricanes in 2013. It reached peak intensity, with top winds of 90 mph, in the far eastern Atlantic.

Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said the Atlantic – which has seen above-normal seasons in 12 of the last 20 years – has been in an era of high activity for hurricanes since 1995. However, this high-activity pattern is expected to be offset in 2014 by the impacts of El Niño, and by cooler Atlantic Ocean temperatures than we’ve seen in recent years.

“Atmospheric and oceanic conditions across the tropical Pacific are already taking on some El Niño characteristics. Also, we are currently seeing strong trade winds and wind shear over the tropical Atlantic, and NOAA’s climate models predict these conditions will persist, in part because of El Niño,” Bell said. “The expectation of near-average Atlantic Ocean temperatures this season, rather than the above-average temperatures seen since 1995, also suggests fewer Atlantic hurricanes.”...

NOAA’s seasonal hurricane outlook is not a hurricane landfall forecast; it does not predict how many storms will hit land or where a storm will strike. Forecasts for individual storms and their impacts will be provided throughout the season by NOAA’s National Hurricane Center."...

.

Global Cooling snow falls in Ferguson, Missouri

11/26/14, "On the eve of Thanksgiving, relative calm in Ferguson," St. Louis Post Dispatch, Elisa Crouch and Doug Moore

"People walked the sidewalks and filled the restaurants along South Grand Boulevard in St. Louis. National Guard soldiers mingled with town residents in Ferguson at the Ferguson Brewery. And international television crews posed for photos in front of city hall.

After turbulent protests, it appeared the fever had broken Wednesday night and peace had fallen on parts of the region."...

photos by St. Louis Post-Dispatch

======================

The climate term, "extreme weather" began when it became obvious "global warming" wasn't happening:

5/31/13, "Science in the Service of Ideology: The National Climate Assessment," Norman Rogers, American Thinker

"(Incidentally, the phrase "extreme weather" did not begin to appear frequently in New York Times articles until around 2010, when it was starting to become clear that global warming had really stopped, at which point the global warming story was changed to the extreme weather story.)"...  

==================

More on "extreme weather:"

On 3/28/12, UN IPCC issued a Special Report on Extremes. Also known as IPCC SREX report, it expressed lack of confidence in attributing increased disasters to CO2:

From Chapter 4, UN IPCC found no human cause seen in loss trends from hurricanes, tornadoes and floods:  

1. "There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change." 

2. "The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornadoes." 

3. "The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses."

The UN IPCC SREX also said two oft-cited reports claiming connection between human CO2 and increased disaster losses are "commentary" rather than empirical research:

"Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research."

.
==================

3/29/12, "A Handy Bullshit Button on Disasters and Climate Change," Roger Pielke Jr. blog

"The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC -- they have gotten the issue just about right, where "right" means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest -- sometimes it just takes a little while....

With this post I am creating a handy bullshit button on this subject (pictured above). Anytime that you read claims that invoke disasters loss trends as an indication of human-caused climate change, including  the currently popular "billion dollar disasters" meme, you can simply call "bullshit" and point to the IPCC SREX report.

You may find yourself having to use the bullshit button in locations that are supposed to be credible, such as Nature Climate Change and the New York Times. This might may feel uncomfortable at first, because such venues are generally credible, but is absolutely necessary to help certain corners of science and the media to regain their credibility. The siren song of linking disasters to human-caused climate change exerts a strong pull for activists in all settings, but might be countered by the widespread and judicious use of the disaster and climate change bullshit button."
.
=====================

UN SREX, "Summary for Policy Makers," 20 pgs. 

"Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation," Summary for Policy Makers

"IPCC, WMO, UNEP"
. 
Full report is 594 pages. 
.
=====================

Comment: Per UN IPCC SREX, page 16, Summary for Policy Makers, increased "international" efforts haven't created results at the local level:

Subhead, p. 15, E. "Managing changing risks of climate extremes and disasters:

page 16: "Stronger efforts at the international level do not necessarily lead to substantive and rapid results at the local level (high confidence)."...

Larger and more bureaucratic programs naturally lend themselves to waste, fraud and abuse. "Efforts at the international level" often means US taxpayer dollars diverted from real problems and funneled to UN and EU parasites and other rich cronies. No strings.




 

.

Obama historic CO2 partner is the last with whom a normal human being would choose to associate unless they had a death wish: 'China coal mines are among world's deadliest due to lax regulation, corruption, poor operating procedures, safety often neglected-AFP

11/25/14, "Coal mine fire kills 24 in China: Xinhua," AFP via UK Daily Mail

"A fire at a Chinese coal mine killed 24 workers early Wednesday, state media reported, the latest fatal incident to hit the accident-prone industry.

The blaze at the mine in Liaoning province, in the northeast, also left 52 people injured, the official Xinhua news agency said, quoting the state-owned Fuxin Coal Corporation.

Initial investigation showed that coal dust in a shaft was ignited shortly after a weak earthquake with a magnitude of just 1.6 hit the mine, said the report.

Rescue operations had been completed, it added, and production had been suspended for safety checks.

The mine went into operation in 1987 and has an annual production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes, with a total of 4,660 employees, Xinhua said.

China's mines are among the world's deadliest because of lax regulation, corruption and poor operating procedures. Safety is often neglected by bosses seeking easy profits and accidents are common.

Last year, the country recorded 589 mining-related accidents, which left 1,049 people dead or missing, according to the government.

Both the number of accidents and fatalities were down more than 24 percent from 2012.

But labour rights groups have said the actual death toll is likely to be much higher than official data, partly due to under-reporting of accidents as mine bosses seek to limit their economic losses and avoid punishment.

Authorities have sought to shut down small mines, a major source of accidents, in an effort to consolidate the industry.

The government plans to close more than 2,000 small coal mines by the end of next year, Xinhua reported in July.

Fuxin Coal is large miner owned by the state, where safety measures are meant to be more strictly implemented, but has seen incidents in the past.

In a major accident in February 2005, 214 people were killed and another 30 injured in a gas explosion at another of the company's mines.

Last year, eight workers died in a gas leak at a separate facility. Multiple coal mine accidents have been reported this year.

In June 22 people were killed in an accident at a coal mine in the southwestern city of Chongqing.

And 20 people died in April when a coal mine in southwest Yunnan province suddenly flooded, leaving miners trapped.

China is the world's biggest consumer of coal, relying on the fossil fuel for 65.7 percent of its energy needs last year, Xinhua reported previously."



.

Global warming pause that began in 1998 could last until 2033 per Science Magazine peer reviewed study-BBC

"Cooling periods associated with the latter deeper heat-sequestration mechanism historically lasted 20 to 35 years." Meaning ongoing pause could continue until 2033 (1998 + 35= 2033).
 
8/21/14, "Global warming slowdown 'could last another decade'," BBC, Matt McGrath

"The hiatus in the rise in global temperatures could last for another 10 years, according to new research.

Scientists have struggled to explain the so-called pause that began in 1999, despite ever increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
 
The latest theory says that a naturally occurring 30-year cycle in the Atlantic Ocean is behind the slowdown. The researchers says this slow-moving current could continue to divert heat into the deep seas for another decade. 
.. 
However, they caution that global temperatures are likely to increase rapidly when the cycle flips to a warmer phase.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global average temperatures have increased by around 0.05C per decade in the period between 1998 and 2012. This compares with a decadal average of 0.12 between 1951 and 2012.

More than a dozen theories have been put forward on the cause of this pause in temperature growth that occurred while emissions of carbon dioxide were at record highs.

These ideas include the impact of pollution such as soot particles that have reflected back some of the Sun's heat into space.

Increased volcanic activity since 2000 has also been blamed, as have variations in solar activity. 

The most recent perspectives have looked to the oceans as the locations of the missing heat.

Last year a study suggested that a periodic upwelling of cooler waters in the Pacific was limiting the rise.

However this latest work, published in the journal Science, shifts the focus from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Southern oceans.

The team, lead by Prof Ka-Kit Tung from the University of Washington, US, says there is now evidence that a 30-year current alternately warms and cools the world by sinking large amounts of heat beneath these deep waters.

They've used observations from a network of devices called Argo floats that sample the oceans down to 2,000 metres.

Ice age fears 

The researchers say that there was another hiatus between 1945 and 1975 due to this current taking down the heat, that led to fears of a new ice age. 

From 1976 though, the cycle flipped and contributed to the warming of the world, as more heat stayed on the surface.

But since the year 2000, the heat has been going deeper, and the world's overall temperatures haven't risen beyond the record set in 1998. 

"The floats have been very revealing to us," said Prof Tung.

"I think the consensus at this point is that below 700 metres in the Atlantic and Southern oceans [they are] storing heat and not the Pacific."

A key element in this new understanding is the saltiness of the water. The waters in the Atlantic current coming up from the tropics are saltier because of evaporation. This sinks more quickly and takes the heat down with it.

Eventually though, the salty water melts enough ice in Arctic waters to lower the saline level, slowing down the current and keeping the heat near the surface. "Before 2006 the saltiness was increasing, this indicated that the current was speeding up," said Prof Tung.

"After 2006, this saltiness is diminishing but it's still above the long-term average. Now it is slowly slowing down. "Once it gets below the long-term average, then it is the next period of rapid warming."

As well as the data from the Argo floats, Prof Tung has also examined the Central England Temperature record, that dates back over 350 years. He believes that this confirms the

regular 70-year cycles of warm and cold spells. 

This historic pattern, he says, could extend the current period of pause. 

"We probably may have another 10 years, maybe shorter as global warming itself is melting more ice and ice could flood the North Atlantic, but historically we are in the middle of the cycle."

Several other researchers in this field acknowledge the Tung analysis is part of a growing body of evidence that suggests the Atlantic has a role in the pause. 

Prof Reto Knutti from the ETH Zurich has recently published a review of all the current theories on the hiatus.

"I see the studies as complementary, and they both highlight that natural variability in ocean and atmosphere is important in modifying long term anthropogenic trends," he said.

"A better understanding of those modes of variability is critical to understand past changes (including differences between models and observations during the hiatus period) as well as predicting the future, in particular in the near term and regionally, where variability dominates the forced changes from greenhouses gases."

Other scientists say that the Atlantic hypothesis is interesting but a much longer range of observations is needed.

"We really don't have a lot of data," said Dr Jonathan Robson from the University of Reading, UK.

"So if there is this 60-year oscillation in the ocean, we haven't observed it all, basically we've observed the impact of it. We may have to wait 15-20 years to know what's going on."

Prof Tung believes that whatever the cause and the length of the pause, we are on a "rising staircase" when it comes to global temperatures that will become apparent when the Atlantic current switches again.

"At the end we will be on the rising part of the staircase, and the rate of warming there will be very fast, just as fast as the last three decades of the 20th Century, plus we are starting off at a higher plateau. The temperatures and the effects will be more severe.""

=====================
=====================

Science Magazine study on "slowdown" in global warming linked in above BBC article:

8/22/14, "Varying planetary heat sink led to global-warming slowdown and acceleration," sciencemag.org. Xianyao Chen¹,², Ka-Kit Tung²,* Author Affiliations

.

¹Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China. ²Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

"A vacillating global heat sink at intermediate ocean depths is associated with different climate regimes of surface warming under anthropogenic forcing: The latter part of the 20th century saw rapid global warming as more heat stayed near the surface. In the 21st century, surface warming slowed as more heat moved into deeper oceans. In situ and reanalyzed data are used to trace the pathways of ocean heat uptake. In addition to the shallow La Niña–like patterns in the Pacific that were the previous focus, we found that the slowdown is mainly caused by heat transported to deeper layers in the Atlantic and the Southern oceans, initiated by a recurrent salinity anomaly in the subpolar North Atlantic. Cooling periods associated with the latter deeper heat-sequestration mechanism historically lasted 20 to 35 years."...

====================
=====================

2013 Nature published study on "the hiatus" in global warming:

"Our results show that the current hiatus is part of natural climate variability, tied specifically to a La-Nina-like decadel cooling."...Nature.com

8/28/13, "Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling," Nature.com, Yu Kosaka and Shang-Ping Xie

"Despite the continued increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, the annual-mean global temperature has not risen in the twenty-first century^{1, 2}, challenging the prevailing view that anthropogenic forcing causes climate warming. Various mechanisms have been proposed for this hiatus in global warming^{3, 4, 5, 6}, but their relative importance has not been quantified, hampering observational estimates of climate sensitivity. Here we show that accounting for recent cooling in the eastern equatorial Pacific reconciles climate simulations and observations. We present a novel method of uncovering mechanisms for global temperature change by prescribing, in addition to radiative forcing, the observed history of sea surface temperature over the central to eastern tropical Pacific in a climate model. Although the surface temperature prescription is limited to only 8.2% of the global surface, our model reproduces the annual-mean global temperature remarkably well with correlation coefficient r = 0.97 for 1970–2012 (which includes the current hiatus and a period of accelerated global warming). Moreover, our simulation captures major seasonal and regional characteristics of the hiatus, including the intensified Walker circulation, the winter cooling in northwestern North America and the prolonged drought in the southern USA. Our results show that the current hiatus is part of natural climate variability, tied specifically to a La-Niña-like decadal cooling. Although similar decadal hiatus events may occur in the future, the multi-decadal warming trend is very likely to continue with greenhouse gas increase." 

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Climate models didn't forecast pause in global warming:

2009, BBC: "For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it."...

10/9/2009, "What happened to global warming?" Paul Hudson, BBC

"This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. "For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise."...  

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2011 PNAS study finds "hiatus" in global warming 1998-2008:

7/5/11, "Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998–2008," PNAS.org
 "Robert K. Kaufmann^a,¹ ,Heikki Kauppi^b, Michael L. Mann^a, and James H. Stock^c"... 

"Abstract"

"Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008. We find that this hiatus in warming coincides with a period of little increase in the sum of anthropogenic and natural forcings....

Data for global surface temperature indicate little warming between 1998 and 2008 (1). Furthermore, global surface temperature declines 0.2 °C between 2005 and 2008. Although temperature increases in 2009 and 2010, the lack of a clear increase in global surface temperature between 1998 and 2008 (1), combined with rising concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, prompts some popular commentators (2, 3) to doubt the existing understanding of the relationship among radiative forcing, internal variability, and global surface temperature."...