Making the rounds in some less-reputable UK outlets is a story based on a new study that shows (according to deniers) why climate models "should never have been trusted in the first place." The Register headline shouts: "MASSIVE GLOBAL COOLING process discovered as Paris climate deal looms."
Carbon Brieffact-checked the coverage and actually spoke with the researchers, who had a slightly different interpretation. Unsurprisingly, they affirmed that the study "definitively does not question climate change."
The study finds that the top tenth of a millimeter of the ocean interacts with the atmosphere to create isoprene, a substance that mixes in the atmosphere to form aerosols. Aerosols are known to have a cooling effect on the climate, so the coverage is correct to the extent that it says the oceans are producing a little more cooling. Overall, however, warming effects are still much larger than cooling effects. The study only indicates that we have discovered a previously unknown cooling mechanism. It doesn't change the overall temperature trend. The amount of cooling hasn't changed over time, meaning the study has no bearing on the accuracy of climate models.
University of Leeds Professor Piers Forster, who wasn't involved in the study, told Carbon Brief that these denier allegations are "so far from the mark as to be quite crazy." The study's co-author said the articles "misinterpret to an alarming extent" and there is "no question that the global climate will become warmer."
If only the UK outlets had done their due diligence and actually spoken with the study's authors, they could have ended up with an accurate story. Instead, they went to Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the group forced to spin off a political lobby group after being found guilty of "blurring fact and comment on climate change."
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