President Obama contended in his State of the Union that “the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.” But, the president’s certainty comes at a time when even proponents of human-caused warming are struggling to account for the almost-total absence of global warming over the past 16 years. NASA and NOAA reported in a joint press conference that the average global temperature for 2013 was only about 0.6 degree C above the average for the 20th century.
This is confirmed by the scientists in the following study. They point out that over the past fifteen years (1998-2012) the observed temperature trend [as compared to computer models] over this period is not significantly different from zero, suggesting “a temporary ‘hiatus’ in global warming,” further citing the studies of Easterling and Wehner (2009) and Fyfe et al. (2011) Fyfe, J.C., Gillett, N.P. and Zwiers, F.W. 2013. Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years. Nature Climate Change 3: 767-769.
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