That Global Warming Hiatus? It Never Happened. Two New Studies Explain Why.

Missing Arctic data was part of the problem.  In the end, the idea of a pause, often cited by climate policy opponents, didn’t hold up to statistical testing.

The United Nations panel of climate science experts mentioned it in a 2013 report, scientists have published more than 200 papers analyzing it, and climate deniers said it was proof that climate change didn't exist, but in reality the global warming "pause" or "hiatus" never occurred.

That is the conclusion of a pair of studies, published Tuesday in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters, based on statistical reassessments of a recent 10-year period that appeared at the time to evince a flattened warming curve.

These are the latest of several assessments to caution that the hiatus theory has no real significance either for climate science or for science-based policy.  Even so, they seem unlikely to stamp out the discussion, which has become a deeply embedded meme in some circles.

Read more at That Global Warming Hiatus?  It Never Happened.  Two New Studies Explain Why.