Scientists predict surge in global warming after 2009

A study forecasts that global warming will set in with a vengeance after 2009, with at least half of the five following years expected to be hotter than 1998, which was the warmest year on record.

Climate experts have long predicted a general warming trend over the 21st century spurred by the greenhouse effect, but this new study gets more specific about what is likely to happen in the 10 years after 2005.

To make this kind of prediction, researchers at Britain's Met Office, which deals with meteorology, have made a computer model that takes into account such natural phenomena as the El Nino pattern in the Pacific Ocean and other fluctuations in ocean circulation and heat content.

Study author Douglas Smith says a forecast of the next decade is particularly useful, because climate could be dominated over this period by these natural changes, rather than human-caused global warming.

In research published in the journal Science, Dr Smith and his colleagues predict that the next three or four years will show little warming, but there will be overall warming over the decade.

"There is ... particular interest in the coming decade, which represents a key planning horizon for infrastructure upgrades, insurance, energy policy and business development," the authors noted.

They say the real heat will start after 2009.

Until then, natural forces will offset the expected warming caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, which releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
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