Nature Geosciences - Study Shows Warming In Upper Troposphere Paralleling Lower-Altitude Trend - AFP

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Climate change models predicting a dangerous warming of the world's atmosphere got a confirming boost Sunday from a study showing parallel trends at altitudes nearly twice as high as Mount Everest. The new research, published in Nature Geoscience, will help remove one of the remaining scientific uncertainties about the general thrust of global warming, the authors and commentators say.

Over the last two decades, temperature readings from the upper troposphere -- 12 to 16 kilometres (7.5 and 10 miles) above Earth's surface -- based on data gathered by satellites and high-flying weather balloons showed little or no increase.

Oft cited by climate change sceptics, these findings were known to be flawed but still challenged the validity of computer models predicting warming trends at these altitudes, especially over the tropics.

In the new study, climate scientists Robert Allen and Steven Sherwood of Yale University use a more accurate method to show that temperature changes in the upper troposphere since 1970 -- about 0.65 degrees Centigrade per decade -- are in fact clearly in sync with most climate change models.

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http://www.terradaily.com/2007/080525170052.p5j94589.html