Lull in global warming possible: Study

Scientists now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Keenlyside, however, stressed that the analysis was just the initial findings of how the oceans behave over decades and it would be wholly misleading to conclude that global warming, in the sense of the enhanced greenhouse effect from increased carbon emissions, had ended.  

According to a paper published in the journal Nature, it would mean that the 0.3C global average temperature rise, which has been predicted for the next decade by the IPCC, may not happen.  However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.

The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998.  

"Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [manmade] warming," the Daily Telegraph of Britain quoted scientists as saying in the journal.