New insights to the previous slowdown in global warming

New research has concluded that the temporary slowing of the global temperature rise that was observed between 1998 and 2013 was due to a redistribution of energy within the Earth system.

A team of climate scientists from the University of Delaware, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other institutions determined that the Earth's oceans absorbed the extra heat gained as a result of the increase in greenhouse gases.

<em> “Scientists have more confidence now that Earth’s ocean has continued to warm continuously through time. But the rate of global surface warming can fluctuate due to natural variations in the climate system over periods of a decade or so," said study co-author Veronica Nieves (JPL).</em>

The ocean is most important to consider when monitoring the Earth's energy budget. The world's oceans can store a tremendous amount of the the Earth's heat, especially compared to the capacity of the land surface or atmosphere, according to the <a href="http://news.agu.org/press-release/study-sheds-new-insights-into-global-warming-hiatus/">American Geophysical Union report.</a>

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As we have shown in previous blogs on this site, ocean heat content may be the best measure of how much the world is actually warming.

Ocean monitoring with tools such as ARGO will be critical in reducing observation errors in sea surface temperature and ocean heat content in the future.

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