Top Scientists Insist Global Warming Really Did Slow Down In The 2000s

"You could be forgiven for not being able to keep up with whether scientists do, or don’t, think global warming “paused” during the early 2000s.

First, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told us, in a definitive 2013 report, that there had been a real slowdown of global warming over the past 15 years. It noted that the rate of warming during the period from 1998 through 2012 was  “smaller than the rate calculated since 1951,” although the body also cautioned that “Due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends.”

Nonetheless, this idea of a global warming slowdown or “pause” was endlessly cited by climate change skeptics and deniers circa 2013. However, more recently, scientific reports have begun to come out challenging the notion."

Chris Mooney reports for the Washington Post February 24, 2016.

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"Leading Scientists Say Warming Slowdown Was Real" (Climate Central)