JOIN USGlobal warming may have been on "pause" for 15 years but could speed up again and still remains a threat, UK scientists have warned.
Huge amounts of heat are being continuously absorbed by the deep ocean, which could explain why global warming has "paused" over the past 10 to 15 years, scientists say.
After a period of rapid temperature increases during the 1980s and 1990s there has been a significant slow-down since the turn of the century, leading some sceptics to claim that global warming has stopped, 'The Independent' reported.
According to scientists from the UK Met Office, the most likely explanation for the recent hiatus in global warming is the continual absorption of thermal energy by the huge "heat sink" of the deep ocean many hundreds of metres below the sea surface.
Measurements from hundreds of ocean floats released over the last decade, which descend and drift to depths of up to 2,000 metres, show that huge amounts of heat from the sea surface is now being transferred to the deep ocean, with unknown consequences for the environment, scientists said.
Scientists said the pause, however, is unlikely to change the predictions over the future course of global warming. Temperature increases expected by 2015 will only be delayed by a further five or ten years.
Average surface temperatures are still on course to increase by 2 degrees Celsius this century, with further rises expected by the end of the century if nothing is done to curb carbon dioxide emissions, they said.
A pause in the rate of increase in global temperatures lasting this long is unusual but not exceptional, with similar pauses of about 10 years expected on average twice every century, professor Stephen Belcher, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, said.