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- Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check
- Sabin 33 #7 - Are solar projects hurting farmers and rural communities?
- How much should you worry about a collapse of the Atlantic conveyor belt?
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #50 2024
- How unusual is current post-El Niño warmth?
- Sabin 33 #6 - Are solar projects harming biodiversity?
- As renewables rise, the world may be nearing a climate turning point
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49
- Interview with John Cook about misinformation and artificial intelligence
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49 2024
- Can desalination quench agriculture’s thirst?
- Sabin 33 #5 - Is solar energy worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels?
- How Plastics Fuel Climate Change
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48
- Translation #20 of The Debunking Handbook 2020 published!
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48 2024
- Recorded webinar about climate change misinformation and disinformation
- Sabin 33 #4 - Clearing trees for solar panels negates any climate change benefits
- Human-caused ocean warming intensified recent hurricanes, including all 11 Atlantic hurricanes in 2024
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47
- Fact brief - Has human-caused climate change increased extreme weather?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
- Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
- Sabin 33 #3 - Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
- Here’s how governments could fix their Paris climate commitment failures
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #46 2024
- 20 fact briefs published in collaboration with Gigafact!
- Sabin 33 #2 - Are toxic heavy metals from solar panels posing a threat to human health?
Escalator 2022
This version of the Escalator graphic is based on data including the year 2022. The previous versions are still available here with data including 2015 or as a video including 2016. When Robert Rohde updated the escalator and produced a staircase of denial in January 2023, it motivated us to follow suit and to update our escalator with the latest available data as well.
One of the most common misunderstandings amongst climate contrarians is the difference between short-term noise and long-term signal. This animation shows how the same temperature data (black) that is used to determine the long-term global surface air warming trend of 0.19°C per decade (red) can be used inappropriately to "cherrypick" short time periods that show a cooling trend simply because the endpoints are carefully chosen and the trend is dominated by short-term noise in the data (blue steps). Isn't it strange how six periods of cooling can add up to a clear warming trend over the last 4 decades? Several factors can have a large impact on short-term temperatures, such as oceanic cycles like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the 11-year solar cycle. These short-term cycles don't have long-term effects on the Earth's temperature, unlike the continuing upward trend caused by global warming from human greenhouse gas emissions.
Source for data used in the graphic: Global mean monthly temperature anomalies, relative to the 1850-1900 mean, from Berkeley Earth.
Blog post introducing the 2022 version of the escalator graphic
Other versions
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Skeptical Science Graphics by Skeptical Science is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. |
THE ESCALATOR
(free to republish)