Report: World Entering a Period of Global Cooling

A report reveals that the global cooling that began in 1997 may continue until mid-century.

A cool Arctic summer has resulted in 60 percent more ocean area covered in ice than last year, the Mail Online reports. That has left several yachts and one cruise ship trying to sail the Northwest Passage either stranded or searching for a new route.

Many top scientists who had predicted a continuing rise in global temperatures after the two decades of increases in the 1980s and '90s are backtracking, the Mail reports.

"The pause – which has now been accepted as real by every major climate research centre – is important, because the models’ predictions of ever-increasing global temperatures have made many of the world’s economies divert billions of pounds into ‘green’ measures to counter climate change," the Mail said.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had planned to begin issuing its latest report in October, but now will hold a pre-summit this month, the Mail reported.

The Mail said it obtained leaked documents that show that governments financing the IPCC are demanding 1,500 changes in a draft report's "summary for policymakers" because the current draft doesn't explain the current pause in warming.

The current draft report says that the organization is 95 percent confident that global warming has been caused by human activity. That is up 90 percent from 2007.

The last cycle of cooling took place from 1965 to 1975, causing some scientists to predict an imminent ice age that never came.

"We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least," said Professor Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin. "There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped."

The IPCC says 15-year pauses do not negate overall warming that began 150 years ago. But the Mail article says mounting evidence suggests that Arctic ice levels are cyclical.

Climate historians have reportedly found data showing massive ice melts in the 1920s and '30s, followed by "intense re-freezes" that didn't end until 1979. That was the same year the IPCC says shrinking began on the polar ice caps.