Justin Gillis, the New York Times' deep green correspondent writes about the plateau in surface temperatures today. If truth is to be told he starts pretty well, explaining scientists's bemusement and confusion over exactly what is behind it.
...given how much is riding on the scientific forecast, the practitioners of climate science would like to understand exactly what is going on. They admit that they do not, even though some potential mechanisms of the slowdown have been suggested. The situation highlights important gaps in our knowledge of the climate system, some of which cannot be closed until we get better measurements from high in space and from deep in the ocean.
Then, however, he goes on to say this:
As you might imagine, those dismissive of climate-change concerns have made much of this warming plateau. They typically argue that “global warming stopped 15 years ago” or some similar statement, and then assert that this disproves the whole notion that greenhouse gases are causing warming.
Rarely do they mention that most of the warmest years in the historical record have occurred recently. Moreover, their claim depends on careful selection of the starting and ending points. The starting point is almost always 1998, a particularly warm year because of a strong El Niño weather pattern.
Is that last point true? We sceptics "almost always" pick 1998 as the start point? I know Lucia doesn't. I certainly don't. David Whitehouse didn't in his report on the plateau. A brief perusal of the results of a search for "no warming for 15 years" turned up nothing at all.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure there are people out there who have started at 1998. But my impression is that these are in a small minority.
I wonder if Justin Gillis can back his claim up?