‘No Warming Until 2020′
Are we off the hook? Has nature conspired to save us from our mistakes? No warming for over a decade? Is this great news?
The answer to all the above is “no”. It’s terrible news. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany believe that a natural cycle of cooling will offset partly or completely any warming over the next decade or so. This may initially sound great, a stay of reprieve, but it’s anything but. The findings are largely a result of increased cloud cover caused by increased storms caused by climate change superimposed onto a small existing cycle. It’s bad news because it gives politicians several terms where they have a ‘look at the last five years’ excuse not to do anything; Give a politician the choice of doing something and doing nothing and he’ll do nothing every time.
What’s worse is that change after the cycle is over will be rapid and that it does not affect high latitudes. Antarctica will still lose ice shelf after ice shelf. Arctic pack ice will still be all but gone in five years.
When the sun dawns on 2020 and the crutch holding us up collapses, do you think we’ll be ready? Call me a pessimist, but I sure don’t.