The mystery of Earth's missing heat may have been solved: it could lurk deep in oceans, temporarily masking the climate-warming effects of greenhouse gas emissions, researchers reported on Sunday.
Climate scientists have long wondered where this so-calledmissing heat was going, especially over the last decade, when greenhouse emissions kept increasing but world air temperatures did not rise correspondingly.
The build-up of energy and heat in Earth's system is important to track because of its bearing on current weather and future climate.
The temperatures were still high -- the decade between 2000 and 2010 was Earth's warmest in more than a century -- but the single-year mark for warmest global temperature was stuck at 1998, until 2010 matched it.
The world temperature should have risen more than it did, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research reckoned.
They said greenhouse gas emissions were rising during the decade and there was a growing gap between how much sunlight was coming in and how much radiation was going out. Some heat was coming to Earth but not leaving, and yet temperatures were not going up as much as projected.
So where did the missing heat go?
Computer simulations suggest most of it was trapped in layers of oceans deeper than 1,000 feet during periods like the last decade when air temperatures failed to warm as much as they might have.
This could happen for years at a time, and it could happen periodically this century, even as the overall warming trend continues, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"This study suggests the missingenergy has indeed been buried in the ocean," NCAR's Kevin Trenberth, a co-author of the study, said in a statement. "The heat has not disappeared and so it cannot be ignored. It must have consequences."
Trenberth and the other researchers ran five computer simulations of global temperatures, taking into account the interactions between the atmosphere, land, oceans and sea ice, and basing the simulations on projected human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.
These simulations all indicated global temperature would rise several degrees this century. But all of them also showed periods when temperatures would stabilize before rising. During these periods, the extra heat moved into deep ocean water due to changes in ocean circulation.


据路透社9月18日报道，研究人员周日(9月18日)发表报告称，地球失踪热量之谜或许已经解开--热量可能藏匿于深海之中，从而暂时掩盖了温室气体排放令气候变暖的事实。

气象学家长期以来一直想搞清楚这些所谓的"失踪"热量究竟去往了何处，特别是在过去十年，温室气体排放量持续增加，而全球气温却没有相应的上升。


追踪地球系统中能量和热量的构成非常重要，因为这对于当前天气和未来气候都有重要影响。


尽管2000至2010年是一个多世纪以来地球最温暖的十年，但全球年平均最高温度记录发生在1998年，只有2010年的平均气温与之接近。

美国国家大气研究中心的科学家认为，全球气温本应该比当前更高。


他们说，这十年中温室气体的排放量一直在增加，进入地球的光照量和地球散热量之间的差距也日益增大。有一些热量来到地球却没有离开，但是气温却未如预期般升高。


那么，这些失踪的热量去哪儿了呢？

计算机仿真模拟实验显示，在过去十年里，大多数失踪热量藏身于1000多英尺深的大海里。


科研人员在《自然-气候变化》月刊上称，这种情况可能会在数年发生一次，而且在本世纪仍会周期性发生，尽管全球气候变暖的趋势仍在继续。

全国大气研究中心的凯文-特伦波斯是研究的参与者之一，他在一份声明中说："这项研究显示，失踪能量事实上被埋在海底。热量并没有消失，因此依然不容忽视，它仍有可能产生影响。"

特伦波斯和其他研究人员利用5台计算机仿真模拟全球温度，他们将大气、陆地、海洋和海冰之间的相互作用以及预计人类会产生的温室气体排放量都考虑在内。


所有实验都表明，本世纪全球气温将升高数度。但在有些时期气温升高之前会稳定一段时间。期间，额外热量受海洋环流影响进入了深海。

• mystery [´mistəri] n.神秘；秘密；故弄玄虚 (初中英语单词)
• missing [´misiŋ] a.缺掉的；失踪的 (初中英语单词)
• energy [´enədʒi] n.活力，精力；能力 (初中英语单词)
• system [´sistəm] n.系统，体系，制度 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• sunlight [´sʌnlait] n.日光 (初中英语单词)
• journal [´dʒə:nəl] n.日记；日报；杂志 (初中英语单词)
• climate [´klaimit] n.气候；特殊气候地带 (初中英语单词)
• computer [kəm´pju:tə] n.计算机；电子计算器 (初中英语单词)
• account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
• atmosphere [´ætməsfiə] n.大气；空气；气氛 (初中英语单词)
• so-called [´sou ´kɔ:ld] a.所谓的，号称的 (高中英语单词)
• decade [´dekeid] n.十年(间) (高中英语单词)
• bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
• circulation [,sə:kju´leiʃən] n.循环；流传；发行(量) (高中英语单词)
• temporarily [´tempərərili] ad.暂时地 (英语四级单词)
• atmospheric [,ætməs´ferik] a.大气的；有...气氛的 (英语四级单词)
• warming [´wɔ:miŋ] n.暖和；加温 (英语四级单词)
• greenhouse [´gri:nhaus] n.温室，玻璃暖房 (英语六级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)