The Global Warming 'Pause' Is More Politics Than Science

The so-called 'pause' in the rate of global warming is false and distracting.  It is a politically engineered excuse to avoid taking action on climate change.

Over the past 17 years, the Earth has warmed rapidly, accumulating energy at a rate equivalent to more than four atomic bomb detonations per second.  That's over 2 billion atomic bombs worth of heat built up on our planet since 1998.

As discussed in a new book by one of us (Dana Nuccitelli) Climatology versus Pseudoscience, research has shown that much of the heat buildup during that time was deposited in the deep layers of the Earth's oceans, temporarily keeping it from the surface.

A new article co-authored by the other of us (Michael Mann), shows that natural ocean oscillations have recently acted to temporarily slow the warming of the Earth's surface temperatures, in combination with a relatively quiet sun, and active volcanoes.

Despite this temporary masking of some of the surface warming, 2005, 2010, and 2014 each set records for global surface temperature, and 2015 is thus far on pace to break the record once again.  Such is the profound nature of human-caused global warming, that it has overcome these many short-term natural cooling influences.

Yet a purported global warming 'pause' (more aptly named the 'faux pause') is often used as an excuse by those who oppose taking action to curb climate change.  For example, Republican Senator and US presidential candidate Ted Cruz recently said on American TV:

Many of the alarmists on global warming, they've got a problem because the science doesn't back them up.  In particular, satellite data demonstrate for the last 17 years, there's been zero warming.

This assertion is problematic for several reasons.  First of all, it is wrong:  the satellite data clearly show ongoing warming over the past two decades.

Secondly, the satellite data in question only estimate the temperature of the atmosphere above Earth's surface.  We, and most other living things, reside on Earth's surface, and the data tell us that surface warming continues unabated.

Finally, warming of the atmosphere accounts for only about two per cent of overall global warming; more than 90 per cent goes into heating of the surface and the oceans.  That heating contributes to the melting of the ice sheets, and the acceleration of global sea level rise.

Read more at The Global Warming 'Pause' Is More Politics Than Science