PLEA Network

13 December 2015, Climate News Network, Cold water poured on warming pause. COP21: Scientists say pressure from climate sceptic voices may have led to credibility being given to the mistaken claim that there is evidence of a hiatus in global warming. The so-called, and much debated, hiatus in global warming may never have happened, according to new research  The scientists say there is no substantive evidence for a recent flattening of the curve in the increase in global average temperatures: in other words, no pause, no slowdown in global warming. “We suggest,” they add, “that the use of those terms is therefore inaccurate.” But first, and briefly, the story so far. In the 1990s, planetary temperatures rose steadily, reaching a then all-time high in 1998. In the 21st century, temperatures on average continued to rise, but the rate of increase seemed to be lower. Even so, 13 of the 14 hottest years ever have happened this century, and 2014 was thehottest year ever. Denialists, sceptics and contrarians seized on the apparent slowdown and claimed that global warming had stopped. And teams of climate scientists were drawn, like moths to a flame, again and again to the question of whether there really was a slowdown − and, if so, why. Unexplained data They kept doing so because that is how science works: researchers worry away at unexplained data. They evaluate each other’s hypotheses, try to kick them to death, and then propose an alternative. So, in the course of the last three years, scientists have variously accepted that global warming was never going to proceed at a steady, inexorable rate, that some Atlantic Ocean cycle might be at play to damp atmospheric temperatures, or that the heat might have disappeared into the Pacific depths. They have also proposed that an increase in volcanic activity may have masked solar radiation, and that extremes of temperature were on the increase even if the average appeared not to be rising intemperately. Read More here