![]() ![]() Social science research has shown that conspiracy theorists are more likely to reject scientists’ conclusions about climate change. The Most Common Denial Response: Conspiracy Theories After the publication of this NOAA paper, and possibly two consecutive record hot years, it seems unlikely that these arguments will be considered credible any longer. Since we’ve always known the slowdown was temporary, these were never credible arguments, but they nevertheless helped to delay efforts to curb global warming. It’s a simple argument – if we pretend the surface warming slowdown can continue indefinitely, then global warming is less of a concern and we don’t need policies to stop it. These slowdown-based anti-policy arguments have been made by everyone from Republican presidential candidates to political think tanks to science-denying blogs. ![]() 2014 was the hottest year on record, and 2015 looks likely to break the record again. This is a tough pill to swallow for those who have misused the short-term slowdown in global surface warming to argue against climate policies, but it’s likely over. The Surface Warming Slowdown is Probably Over There is evidence, however, for a modest, temporary slowdown in surface warming through the early part of this decade. There never was any “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming. ![]() But these are just wiggles on top of the long-term human-caused global warming trend. If you carefully cherry pick start and end dates, you can find a period around 1998–2012 during which the warming of surface temperatures slowed a bit due to temporary natural cooling factors (like more La Niñas), just like it sped up a bit during the 1990s due to temporary natural warming factors (like more El Niños). More than 90% of that heat goes into the oceans, and as my colleagues and I noted in a paper published 3 years ago, if anything that warming is accelerating, building up heat at a rate faster than 4 atomic bomb detonations per second. Arguments about short-term temperature changes only deal with the Earth’s surface temperatures, which account for just 1–2% of the overall warming of the planet. ![]()
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