Global warming mystery cleared up 07 May 04

One of the enduring mysteries of global warming science – frequently referred to by sceptics – was the apparent discrepancy between weather station measurements of the Earth’s surface temperature, which showed a rapid warming, and satellite data for the lower atmosphere, which didn’t. Now the mystery has been solved: it seems that the cooling of the high stratosphere, also a predicted effect of greenhouse gas accumulation, was fooling the satellites. Once this error was corrected for in the data, the troposphere turned out to be warming after all. The sceptics still aren’t convinced of course – don’t worry everyone, the Earth’s still flat!