Next five years could be global scorchers

If there’s nothing like an unusually snowy winter or a summertime cold spell to bring out the climate change deniers, what might a five-year global heat wave do for global warming activists?

We could soon find out, as a new study to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds that the relatively unremarkable global temperatures of the past seven years has been due to a weak El Niño trend and low solar activity. With both those factors set to perk up, the temporary lid they’ve placed on the greenhouse effect is likely to be lifted.

As that happens, the next five years could see average global temperatures increase much faster than predicted over the next five years, according to researchers Judith Lean of the US Naval Research Laboratory and David Rind of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

In fact, as reported in the Guardian this week, warming trends over the next half-decade could exceed those predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by 150 per cent.

If that happens, we’re betting we’ll hear a lot less bleating from the denier crowd in years to come.