Researchers Find that Global Warming Projections May Be Exaggerated

A research team from Duke University found that the current estimates linked to global warming and man-made climate change might be a little exaggerated because several temperature variations can be caused by “natural variations,” rather than by human activities.

“Based on our analysis, a middle-of-the-road warming scenario is more likely, at least for now. But this could change,”

noted Patrick Brown, one of the study authors.

Scientists found that global warming rates could be critically influenced by natural variations in surface temperatures from a decade to another. Scientists dubbed those changes linked to natural variability “climate wiggles.”

Researchers argued that the International Panel on Climate Control’s climate models are accurate only to a certain point because the panel failed to properly estimate the scale and impact of climate wiggles which were generated by natural factors.

Study authors explained that those “wiggles” could be held responsible for the global warming trend recorded between 1975 and 2000, and the reduced pace of this trend we experienced in the last eleven years.

Brown believes that a “11-year hiatus” in global warming predictions would be impossible if we took into account only the staggering rates of the man-made warming predicted by the IPCC. The researcher said that such situations are only possible under “a middle-of-the-road scenario.”

Brown also disclosed that the IPCC had a middle-of-the-road scenario, which was consistent with Duke University’s recent climate model. Both models predict that the current warming hiatus had a 70 percent chance to last 35 more years.

The recent climate change model was designed by Duke University researchers with help from San Jose State University’s professors and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s climate change experts.

For their model, scientists used data on the surface temperature variations recorded over the last 1,000 years. Another researcher wrote in a report that the recent model clearly showed that global warming rates could and did change over the course of human history.

In 2014, the IPCC urged humanity to lower its fossil fuel combustion next to zero by the end of this century to prevent temperature rise from reaching a no-return point. According to the IPCC, failure to follow its recommendation and invest more in green technologies would lead to “irreversible” effects on people and their environment.

The panel argued that such irreversible effects were already happening such as polar ice caps’ melting, heat waves, rising sea level, a more acidic sea water and so on.

When the report was launched, U.N. officials concluded that world’s leaders had no excuse not to act as “science had spoken.” And President Obama expressed a similar viewpoint during last week’s Earth Day’s speech.

The President said April 22 that climate change could no longer be denied nor “edited out”, while federal officials vowed to persuade ranchers and farmers to join voluntary programs to tackle the issue.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack explained that ranchers and farmers were leaders in reducing their CO2 emissions and improving their operations’ efficiency. Vilsack said that the new measures will help substantially reduce the greenhouse gas effect and visibly increase carbon capture rates. During the programs, farmers and ranchers will benefit from grants, technical aid, and low-interest loans.

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