Added Arctic Data Shows Global Warming Didn't Pause

Improved datasets show that Arctic warmed six times faster than the global average during 'global warming hiatus'.

Gaps in Arctic temperature data caused a misperception that global warming slowed from 1998 to 2012, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

A University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and his colleagues in China built the first data set of surface temperatures from across the world that significantly improves representation of the Arctic during the "global warming hiatus."

Xiangdong Zhang, an atmospheric scientist with UAF's International Arctic Research Center, said he collaborated with colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese agencies studying Arctic warming to analyze temperature data collected from buoys drifting in the Arctic Ocean.

"We recalculated the average global temperatures from 1998-2012 and found that the rate of global warming had continued to rise at 0.112C per decade instead of slowing down to 0.05C per decade as previously thought," said Zhang who is also a professor with UAF's College of Natural Science and Mathematics.

Zhang said their new estimates showed that the Arctic warmed more than six times the global average during that time period.

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