From Charlie Nelson
There are two dangerous consequences that follow from the study suggesting the world will warm more slowly than we thought (25 May, p 8). The first is that politicians will use this to justify continued procrastination in reducing carbon emissions.
The second is that the slower warming of recent years may be associated with a natural factor, most likely the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which appears to have an approximately 60-year cycle. If this is masking temperature rises, the opposite may occur from about 2040 in much the same way that temperatures increased rapidly in the later decades of the 20th century.
The need to reduce emissions is just as urgent as ever.
Brunswick, Victoria, Australia
