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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • global warming
  • climate change

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability
  • Atmospheric Processes: Global climate models
  • Global Change: Climate dynamics
  • Global Change: Atmosphere

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 36, L08706, 3 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2009GL037810

Is the climate warming or cooling?

David R. Easterling

National Climatic Data Center, NOAA, Asheville, North Carolina, USA

Michael F. Wehner

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA

Numerous websites, blogs and articles in the media have claimed that the climate is no longer warming, and is now cooling. Here we show that periods of no trend or even cooling of the globally averaged surface air temperature are found in the last 34 years of the observed record, and in climate model simulations of the 20th and 21st century forced with increasing greenhouse gases. We show that the climate over the 21st century can and likely will produce periods of a decade or two where the globally averaged surface air temperature shows no trend or even slight cooling in the presence of longer‐term warming.

Received 18 February 2009; accepted 30 March 2009; published 25 April 2009.

Citation: Easterling, D. R., and M. F. Wehner (2009), Is the climate warming or cooling?, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L08706, doi:10.1029/2009GL037810.

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