Global warming didn't stop from 1998 to 2012, study finds

Arctic thaw

Image - NASA

According to a new study published in the journal 'Nature Climate Change', the lack of data on the temperature of the Arctic generated the apparent slowdown in global warming between 1998 and 2012. Scientists from the University of Alaska Faibanks (UAF), along with other experts from China, have constructed what is the world's first set of surface temperatures.

In doing so they have discovered that the rate of global warming had continued to increase 0,112 degrees Celsius per decade instead of decreasing to 0,05 degrees per decade during that period, as previously thought.

The team of scientists recalculated the average global temperatures between 1998 and 2012 and what they found out was truly dramatic: the Arctic has warmed much more than the rest of the planet on average. "We estimate a new Arctic global warming rate at 0,659 degrees Celsius per decade in that period." Previous studies had concluded that the warming had been 0,130 degrees per decade. It was already known that it was a very vulnerable area, but this new report shows us that the real situation is much worse.

Most current estimates use global data that represent a long period of time, but the Arctic does not have a robust instrument network to collect temperature data. Therefore, the researchers relied on data collected by the International Arctic Buoy Program at the University of Washington (United States), and corrected sea surface temperatures from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). for global data.

Arctic ice

The Arctic remains, and now more than ever, an area that researchers must continue to study, because if once it was believed that it was not large enough to influence average global temperatures, according to atmospheric scientist Xiangdong Zhang, of the UAF International Arctic Research Center, the Arctic »is a necessary part of the equation and the answer affects us all».

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