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Posted on April 5, 2008 in Latest News
The temperatures worldwide are expected to drop this year because of the La Nina current in the Pacific Ocean. This has prompted some scientists to question the existence of global warming.
Weather experts say that La Nina current will last into the summer – meaning world temperatures will not have risen since 1998. A small group of scientists argue that since the temperature of earth has not risen since 1998 it means that the world has grown resilient to the greenhouse gases contrary to what was predicted.
But the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record and forecast a new record high temperature within five years.
Over the last century the world’s average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.
Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the WMO, said: “When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year.
“You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.
“La Nina is part of what we call ‘variability’. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina.”
Scientist Adam Scaife, of the Hadley Centre in Exeter, says, “What’s happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended.”
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