 by longhorndave
Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!:
[Via Skeptical Science]
The modern global warming trend began around 1975 and has shown a long term warming trend of 0.18°C per decade since. That's not to say the warming trend has been monotonically constant with each year slightly warmer than the previous. Short term weather fluctuations cause a noisy signal. Large volcanic eruptions lead to dramatic cooling over several years. El Nino/La Nina has a cycle of warming and cooling lasting 4 to 5 years. To demonstrate climate's variability, let's examine a 6 year record early in the global warming period.
Figure 1: Land-ocean temperature anomaly (NASA GISS) 1981 to 1987.
[More]
Skeptical Science is great at providing useful scientific debunking of climate denialists' arguments. In fact, it has one of the web's single best pages for anyone who wants to discuss the arguments about global climate change. It displays a thermometer recording the top 10 false claims.
In this post, written by John Cook, we get a great explanation of one of the denialists' favorite tricks - cherry picking data. By only looking at a well chosen sub-set of the data, thay can make any claim they want. Like the world is really cooling.
John leads you through the argument, then reveals the final answer. There have been lagging trends in global warming where the temperatures do not go up very far. As can be seen in the final figure, every time in the last three cycles when solar activity decreases, there has been a pause in global warming. But this pause has been at a higher temperature than the previous cycle.
When this next cycle starts, we will be in for another large temperature increase. The next time it pauses, it will be at a higher plateau then we are now. Unless we reduce carbon emissions this will continue.
Technorati Tags: Environment, General, Sustainability 5:34:30 PM 
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