Communication Gap: The Disconnect between what Scientists Say and what the Public Hears

Mojib Latif probably didn’t anticipate the public reaction his research would attract last year. Writing in the 1 May 2008 issue of Nature, he and his colleagues from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences and the Max Planck Institute in Kiel, Germany, predicted that increases in mean global temperatures could pause into the next decade, even though greenhouse gas levels were still rising in the atmosphere. at lull in warming, their models showed, was temporary, and due to complex interactions between the atmosphere and periodic cooling cycles in the oceans.