Sep 23, 2014 02:55 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A new study has suggested that global warming may not be entirely manmade and some of the blame can be placed on natural changes in the wind.

According to the Associated Press, the study authors published their work in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers used ocean surface air pressure as a substitute for wind measurements and compared it to ocean surface temperatures from 1900 to 2012.

They found a match.

"What we found was the somewhat surprising degree to which the winds can explain all the wiggles in the temperature curve," study lead author Jim Johnstone, a climatologist at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington when he led the study, told the AP. "So clearly, there are other factors stronger than the greenhouse forcing that is affecting those temperatures."

Mainstream climatologists were not so welcoming of the new study's findings and doubted the conclusions Johnstone and his team made. While the new study does not refute global warming, it does argue that local winds have a larger impact in certain places than greenhouse gasses do.

"This may say more about the state of climate modeling than it says about causes of warming in the Pacific Northwest," Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology, told the AP. "The authors... have not established the causes of these atmospheric pressure variations. Thus, claims that the observed temperature increases are due primarily to 'natural' processes are suspect and premature, at best."

Study co-author Nate Mantua, now with NOAA Fisheries' Southwest Fisheries Science Center, told the Seattle Times said the Pacific Northwest is one of those certain areas where varying wind patterns is contributing to warming ocean surface temperatures.

"It's a simple story, but the results are very surprising: We do not see a human hand in the warming of the West Coast," he said. "That is taking people by surprise, and may generate some blowback."

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit