It's like a bargain made with the devil: It turns out we have China's POLLUTION to thank for the reason climate change hasn't made the weather warmer. Smoke belching from Asia's rapidly growing economies is largely responsible for a halt in global warming in the decade after 1998 because of sulfur's cooling effect.
World temperatures did not rise from 1998 to 2008, while manmade emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel grew by nearly a third. Sulfur allows water drops to form, creating hazy clouds which reflect sunlight back into space, cooling the earth. Sulfur emissions are linked to coal consumption, which in China grew more than 100% in the decade leading up to 2008, or nearly 3 times the rate of the previous 10 years Natural cooling effects included a declining solar cycle after 2002.
There was a peak in temperatures in 1998, partially due to a strong El Nino weather event, something which brings warm waters to the surface of the Pacific Ocean every few years. Subsequent years have still included nine of the top 10 hottest years on record, while the UN World Meteorological Organization said 2010 was tied for the record. A UN panel of climate scientists said in 2007 that it was 90% certain that humans are causing global warming. This means that the climate may change even more quickly that expected once these countries finally crack down on pollution.
In Science News Daily, Gerard Wynn quotes climatologist Peter Stott as saying, "Long term warming will continue unless emissions are reduced." Whitley first learned about climate change in 1998, the Master of the Key burst into his hotel room and talking. Read about the other things MOTKE told him, with a new foreword from Whitley telling which of these predictions have COME TRUE, in the new edition of The Key, in bookstores NOW!