I have a story coming in The Times overnight that focuses on a new study forecasting some Northern Hemisphere cooling in the coming decade, even as the planet continues to warm in the long haul from the accelerating buildup of human-generated greenhouse gases.

The researchers, writing in the journal Nature, stress that this is a preliminary attempt to shift climate models toward becoming a forecasting tool, mainly by tweaking them with real-world data (in this case ocean temperatures) as they churn through their simulations.

They forecast a plateau in warming and some possible cooling over North America and Europe in the coming decade, probably driven by shifts in ocean circulation in the North Atlantic and other ocean cycles that can affect climate. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA recently reported that the Pacific Ocean appears to be reverting to a cool phase, as well.

Whether their prediction of a plateau for warming for a decade in North America and Europe is correct or not, their research may signal a shift that many climate researchers have been calling for for awhile now — toward service-oriented climate science (even as work continues to clarify how much warming will happen, how fast, from the greenhouse buildup).