By So much for the science is settled claim:
Why the Earth’s surface temperature hasn’t warmed as expected over the past decade continues to be a puzzle for scientists. One study out earlier this month theorized that the Earth’s climate may be less sensitive to greenhouse gases than currently assumed.Another surprising factor could be the amount of water vapor way up in the stratosphere, according to a new study out Thursday in the journal Science.
Water vapor, a potent, natural greenhouse gas that absorbs sunlight and re-emits heat, is “a wild card” of global warming, says the paper’s lead author, senior scientist Susan Solomon of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. Solomon was also a co-chair of one of the groups within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that put out the definitive forecast of global warming in 2007.
In the Science paper, Solomon and her colleagues found that a drop in the concentration of water vapor in the stratosphere “very likely made substantial contributions to the flattening of the global warming trend since about 2000. [USA Today]
So is the eco-faithful going to makes us buy “water offsets” to water our lawn now to prevent global warming?
8:59 am on January 30th, 2010 1
Oh noes. That's going to make it damn near impossible to save the planet. Now what are we going to… Oh look, a pretty pony!
12:13 pm on January 30th, 2010 2
I thought the sun causes global warming? Can't we just send some giant space fire-extinguishers toward the sun? Why wouldn't that work?
12:13 pm on January 30th, 2010 3
[...] Science Journal Article Shows That Water Vapor Linked to Global … Share and [...]
12:30 pm on January 30th, 2010 4
We could launch all the global warming water at the sun and end global warming for good. Two birds, one stone.
2:02 pm on January 30th, 2010 5
LMAO!! You guys are too much!!!!
2:52 pm on January 30th, 2010 6
Why global warming has been on hold for the last decade continues to be a puzzle for scientists? I thought we just had the warmest year in 2009 since Christ was a Private? When did it suddenly become a puzzle?
4:00 pm on January 30th, 2010 7
I wish more attention was paid to pollution. Sure, carbon dioxide emissions is a bad thing, but pollution is killing people now.
9:22 am on January 31st, 2010 8
Actually industrial pollution, automobile exhaust, etc, has been killing americans for at least 100 years. I think it has been reduced greatly since I was growing up in the 50s.
Many rivers that were so polluted there were no longer any fish are now full of fish. I'm talking about large rivers as well as small.
Trash that used to be regularly tossed out the car windows created a mess on the sides of roads, not to mention beer cans and whiskey bottles.
Smokestacks used to belch out all kinds of soot and other obnoxious smelling fumes on a regular basis around town.
I know pollution causes illness and death in some cases, but I have to believe on a per capita basis it is much, much lower than it was in the past.
5:27 pm on January 31st, 2010 9
It became a puzzle once people admitted that they can no longer "hide the decline". Almost all temperature records for the past 10 years have been hand modified to math the warming theory's with little attention paid to the actual temperature. We've actually been cooling the last 10 or so years not warming, it wasn't the hottest summer in 09, nor in 08, nor in 07 and it likely won't be in 2010.
5:37 pm on January 31st, 2010 10
Yes pollution is much lower nowadays then before, but if the eco-nuts recognized that then they would be out of a job.