Betting against global warming is a sure way to lose money | Dana Nuccitelli

Even climate contrarians don't bet against global warming, probably because they know it's a bet they would lose

In 2008, a paper was published in the journal Nature predicting that global surface temperatures would cool slightly in the years 2005-2015 as compared to 1994-2004. The authors of that paper thought that during that time, the cool phase of natural ocean cycles would be enough to more than offset warming from the increased greenhouse effect, before human-caused global warming caught up again thereafter. At the time, the paper and its cooling prediction received a tremendous amount of media attention.

There was some truth to the prediction. From about 1999 to 2012, there were more La Nina than El Nino events, with the former having a short-term cooling influence on global surface temperatures, and the latter having a short-term warming effect. So, it's true that natural ocean cycles had a temporary cooling effect during that time period.