Global warming slowdown ‘is over’

The “slowdown” in global warming is over, the Met Office has said.

While the world remained at near-record levels of warmth in the early 2000s, analysis of rolling 15-year trends shows that the rate of warming slowed between 1999 and 2014, the experts confirmed.

But a change in the natu- ral pattern of warm and cool phases in Pacific sea surface temperatures, which impact on global temperatures, has brought the slowdown to an end. Climate sceptics point to the slowing rate of temperature rises or “pause” as contradicting evidence of ongoing climate change, although experts said other signs of a warming world, such as rising sea levels, continued.

Now, with the last three years each breaking the annual record for global temperatures, the slowdown is over.

Met Office chief scientist Professor Stephen Belcher said: “Data shows that the longterm rate of global warming has now returned to the level seen in the second half of the 20th century.”

So far 2017 has also exceeded the 1C threshold.