Short Sharp Science: Why global temperatures held steady for 10 years
Global warming temporarily ground to a halt over the last 10 years, thanks to increased pollution from China, the El Niño system in the Pacific, and a slight drop in the energy Earth gets from the sun.
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The short answer is yes. In the model, global temperatures held steady, showing no significant rise over the study period.
A major reason for this is the rise in coal use in China. This produces a lot of sulphur particles, which cool the global climate. This more-or-less cancelled out the warming effect of the greenhouse gas emissions.
That shouldn't come as a surprise. It's well-established that aerosol particles can have a major impact on the climate. In south-east Asia, particularly China and India, there is often a "brown haze" of pollution that has an overall cooling effect on the planet.
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