Debunking the climate hiatus

• Published in: Climatic change 2015-11, Vol.133 (2), p.129-140
• Main Authors: Rajaratnam, Bala, Romano, Joseph, Tsiang, Michael, Diffenbaugh, Noah S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Assessments; Atmospheric Sciences; Climate; Climate change; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Climate system; Datasets; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Emissions; Global climate; Global temperatures; Global warming; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Hypotheses; Ocean temperature; Stalling; Statistical analysis; Time series; Trends; United Nations
• ISSN: 0165-0009; 1573-1480
• DOI: 10.1007/s10584-015-1495-y

The reported “hiatus” in the warming of the global climate system during this century has been the subject of intense scientific and public debate, with implications ranging from scientific understanding of the global climate sensitivity to the rate in which greenhouse gas emissions would need to be curbed in order to meet the United Nations global warming target. A number of scientific hypotheses have been put forward to explain the hiatus, including both physical climate processes and data artifacts. However, despite the intense focus on the hiatus in both the scientific and public arenas, rigorous statistical assessment of the uniqueness of the recent temperature time-series within the context of the long-term record has been limited. We apply a rigorous, comprehensive statistical analysis of global temperature data that goes beyond simple linear models to account for temporal dependence and selection effects. We use this framework to test whether the recent period has demonstrated i) a hiatus in the trend in global temperatures, ii) a temperature trend that is statistically distinct from trends prior to the hiatus period, iii) a “stalling” of the global mean temperature, and iv) a change in the distribution of the year-to-year temperature increases. We find compelling evidence that recent claims of a “hiatus” in global warming lack sound scientific basis. Our analysis reveals that there is no hiatus in the increase in the global mean temperature, no statistically significant difference in trends, no stalling of the global mean temperature, and no change in year-to-year temperature increases.