What has global warming done since 1998?
What the science says...
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Every part of the Earth's climate system has continued warming since 1998, with 2015 shattering temperature records. |
Climate Myth...
It hasn't warmed since 1998
For the years 1998-2005, temperature did not increase. This period coincides with society's continued pumping of more CO2 into the atmosphere. (Bob Carter)
Even if we ignore long term trends and just look at the record-breakers, 2015, 2014, 2010, and 2005 were hotter than 1998.
The myth of no warming since 1998 was based on the satellite record estimates of the temperature of the atmosphere. However, as discussed in the video below by Peter Sinclair, even that argument is no longer accurate. The satellites show warming since 1998 too.
There's also a tendency for some people just to concentrate on atmospheric or surface air temperatures when there are other, more useful, indicators that can give us a better idea how rapidly the world is warming. More than 90% of global warming heat goes into warming the oceans, while less than 3% goes into increasing the atmospheric and surface air temperature. Records show that the Earth has been warming at a steady rate before and since 1998 and there is no sign of it slowing any time soon (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Land, atmosphere, and ice heating (red), 0-700 meter ocean heat content (OHC) increase (light blue), 700-2,000 meter OHC increase (dark blue). From Nuccitelli et al. (2012).
Even if we focus exclusively on global surface temperatures, Cowtan & Way (2013) shows that when we account for temperatures across the entire globe (including the Arctic, which is the part of the planet warming fastest), the global surface warming trend for 1997–2015 is approximately 0.14°C per decade.
Ultimately, every part of the Earth's climate system is warming, and has continued warming since 1998.
This rebuttal was updated by Kyle Pressler in September 2021 to replace broken links. The updates are a result of our call for help published in May 2021.
Last updated on 29 September 2017 by dana1981. View Archives
[DB] Thanks for taking the time to voice your concerns. Tom Curtis has already addressed most of them below, but let me focus on Wood For Trees.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/ is a website run by Paul Clark, a British software developer. Paul has loaded into the website all the publicly-available temperature datasets, including BEST. As such, it is an invaluable tool for quickly comparing temperature trends over varying timeframes. Many climate scientists use Wood For Trees for quick comparisons for the public to turn to for answers to questions.
It's not a panacea for research, as the pros still work directly with the datasets directly, but it is a valuable tool.
As for the rest, I'll close by saying that anyone who agrees that a time series of only a decade isn't scientifically significant AND who also says that over the same time a scientifically significant long-term trend has stopped is speaking out of both sides of their mouths. The two positions are mutually exclusive.