The study entitled “The Characteristics and Mechanism of Global-Warming Slowdown” published by Ocean University of China (OUC) was recognized as one of the “Top 10 Advances in Science and Technology in China’s Institutions of Higher Learning 2014” released on Dec. 23 by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

The research project is led by Professor Chen Xianyao from the Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory—a key laboratory under the MOE organized and administered by OUC. This is the first time that the research project has been selected for the Top 10 Advances in Science and Technology in China’s Institutions of Higher Learning, which is also the first of its kind in Shandong Province in the recent 10 years. And this finding is the only one selected in the field of resource environment and geoscience. The other nine achievements are from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Second Military Medical University, China University of Petroleum Beijing, Nanjing Agricultural University, and Yanshan University.

By analyzing data observed in the laboratory, Prof. Chen Xianyao from OUC and Prof. Ka-Kit Tung from the University of Washington (UW) found that the temperature and salinity of sea water from the northern part of the North Atlantic have been rising since the later half of the 1990s, from which they concluded that the North Atlantic sinking branch of the thermohaline circulation might become stronger, thus having delivered much heat to the deep sea which slows down surface warming. This research finding demonstrates that global warming hasn’t slowed down. Instead, the heat distribution in different parts of the climate system has changed which shows that the ocean is of vital importance in regulating the process of global warming.

A research paper titled “Varying Planetary Heat Sink a Cause of Global-Warming Slowdown and Acceleration” was published in Science by this research team and garnered serious attention. The magazine, The Economists employed the word “depth charge” in the illustration of its review article, which emphasized the importance of the heat transferred to the deep sea while highlighting the contribution of this paper to the current research in heat transfer and storage mechanisms in the climate system. The well-known climatologist, Prof. Judith Curry from the Georgia Institute of Technology pointed out in the homepage of his climate forum that “This paper demonstrates one of the important parts in the challenge of the global-warming slowdown.” Such famous magazines and Media from home and abroad as the Xinhua News Agency, the Science News, BBC, Reuters, The New York Times, and the National Geographic, have reported the latest research findings of this paper.