Deep oceans of the earth may be absorbing enough heat to flatten out the rate of global warming for as long as a decade, a new research has suggested.

Ocean layers deeper than 1,000 feet (300 meters) are the main location of the “missing heat” especially of the last decade, when greenhouse emissions kept increasing but world air temperatures did not rise correspondingly.

The findings also suggest that several more intervals like this can be expected over the next century, even as the trend toward overall warming continues.

“We will see global warming go through hiatus periods in the future,” says NCAR’s Gerald Meehl, lead author of the study.

“However, these periods would likely last only about a decade or so, and warming would then resume. This study illustrates one reason why global temperatures do not simply rise in a straight line,” he added.

The study was recently published in Nature Climate Change.