Warming is only on hold until the wind changes

摘要

Powerful winds in the Pacific are largely responsible for the recent slowdown in global warming. The intense winds have encouraged heat to sink into the oceans. But as soon as the winds die down, the heat will escape and warming will resume. Over the past 20 years, the trade winds that gust westwards across the Pacific have soared to unprecedented strengths. The strongest winds are now twice as powerful. These winds far exceed climate modellers' predictions. So Matthew England from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and colleagues decided to see what would happen if they factored actual wind levels into the models.