Zeke Hausfather and his colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley disprove the global warming hiatus that most scientists believed in during 1998 to 2013 with their new study.
Global warming was said to be slowing down during the early part of the 21st century, until a controversial study led by Tom Karl from NOAA disproved the notion. The new study from the University of California, Berkeley scientists show how much the rise of ocean temperatures have been underestimated, according to The Independent.
The study confirms that the rising sea temperatures taken from data collected from Argo floats, buoys and satellites agree with the new ocean temperature set by NOAA, according to Hausfather in an interview with ResearchGate.
It used to be that ocean temperatures were recorded by ships from engine room intake valves until the mid-1990s. This is problematic as ship measurements are affected by a variety of factors such as speed of the ship and depth of the hull. As a result, there was a a cool temperature bias taken from ship-collected data. The controversial report made by Karl and his team from NOAA was the first to challenge the notion of the global warming hiatus by proving that the ocean's temperatures have warmed and it is consistent with long-term trend.
The new study from Hausfather and his team made use of separate ocean records from different measuring systems. They used floating buoys recording the temperature and the data automatically sent to satellites. Argo floats that can dive down to the ocean are also used. Not only that, radiometer satellites that can measure the heat radiated by the surface of the ocean were also utilized by the scientists.
The result of the study made by Hausfather and his team confirms that the newly-updated temperature datasets by NOAA is more accurate than the old one. It should be enough to disprove claims made against NOAA when their study was first published, which accused them of changing the datasets due to political reasons.
To prevent a similar bias from happening again in the future, Hausfather recommends that further studies should use more accurate data taken from other measuring systems that are in the water directly such as buoys.
