Coal Sulfur Prevented Global Warming For 10 Years?

Down I-93 a piece, Researcher Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University is proposing that the doubling of coal consumption in China has produced enough Sulfur Aerosols to cancel out the impact of Carbon Dioxide regarding warming surface temperatures.  The Researcher says:

Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008.  We find that this hiatus in warming coincides with a period of little increase in the sum of anthropogenic and natural forcings.  Declining solar insolation as part of a normal eleven-year cycle, and a cyclical change from an El Nino to a La Nina dominate our measure of anthropogenic effects because rapid growth in short-lived sulfur emissions partially offsets rising greenhouse gas concentrations.

This theory is brought to us by Future Pundit, at this location.  Note, however, that it is science and the current theory is always liable to challenge by some upstart scientist, or even an older one, grinding away in obscurity. 

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff