Volcanic activity all over the world supposedly helps explain why global warming temperatures have dropped during the last decade or so, according to a new study.
Since 1998, the study claims temperatures have dropped, which explains why global temperatures have failed to increase at the pace climate experts originally predicted.
Results were published in the journal Nature Geoscience this week.
The theory has most experts perplexed, as some now worry that the decline will hurt a greenhouse gas emissions deal set to be determined at the UN summit on climate change in 2015 in Paris.
Scientists say the new study will help solve what lead author, Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, calls "a complex detective story."
Since 2000, around 17 volcanoes have erupted around the world, including Kasatochi in Alaska, Merapi in Indonesia, and Nabro in Eritrea.
Experts feel that these eruptions emitted large amounts of sulfur into the lower atmosphere, which blocks the warming "powers of the sun," according to Nature Geoscience.
The increase in sulfur accounted for around 15 percent of the temperature drop, according to the study.
"Volcanoes give us only a temporary respite from the relentless warming pressure of continued increases in carbon dioxide," Piers Forster, Professor of Climate Change at the University of Leeds, said according to The Guardian.
More research is needed to figure out the other 85 percent, according to the study. Other factors have been listed as potential contributors, like a decline in the sun's output, and an increased absorption of heat by oceans.
Since the turn of the century however, we've seen 13 of the 14 hottest years on record, which means temperatures are still slightly on the rise. With greenhouse gas emissions reaching new heights as well, experts predict warming trends to pick up in the near future, according to the study.
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