LONDON: Global warming has stalled since 1998, and in the next few years Earth's temperature will not rise as rapidly as feared, UK Met officials have claimed.
Over the next five years temperatures will be 0.43 degrees above the 1971-2000 average , instead of the previously forecast 0.54 degrees — a 20% reduction, the Met office in UK has confirmed.
This rise would be only slightly higher than the 0.4-degree rise recorded in 1998, an increase which is itself attributed by forecasters to an exceptional weather phenomenon , the Daily Mail reported. With all but 0.03 degrees of the rise having occurred by 1998, it means that no further significant increases to the planet's temperature are expected over the next few years.
The figures have been seized on by sceptics of manmade climate change, who claim that global warming has flatlined despite a large rise in greenhouse emissions. "That the global temperature standstill could continue to at least 2017 would mean a 20-year period of no statistically significant change," David Whitehouse, science adviser to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said.
2012 the hottest year in US history
The US has experienced the highest average temperatures in 2012, making it hottest year in the country's history. "The average temperature for 2012 was 55.3°F, 3.2°F above the 20th century average, and 1.0°F above 1998, the previous warmest year," the National Climate Data Centre of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said. Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the report should be an eye opener.
