Web of Fate | Share Your Future

Global warming forecast predicts rise in 2014

Here is the climate forecast for the next decade; although global warming will be held in check for a few years, it will come roaring back to send the mercury rising before 2014.

The overall trend in warming is driven by greenhouse gas emissions
Overall warming trend is driven by greenhouse gas emissions

This is the prediction of the first computer model of the global climate designed to make forecasts over a timescale of around a decade, developed by scientists at the Met Office.

The new model developed at the Met's Hadley Centre in Exeter, and described in the journal Science, predicts that warming will slow during the next few years but then speed up again, and that at least half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998, the warmest year on record.

Over the 10-year period as a whole, climate continues to warm and 2014 is likely to be 0.3 deg C warmer than 2004.

The overall trend in warming is driven by greenhouse gas emissions but this warming effect will be broadly cancelled out over the next few years by the changing patterns of the ocean temperatures.