Those in the deniersphere are celebrating a new study led by John Fyfe for its supposed debunking of Thomas Karl's 2015 study, which showed no pause in global warming. The new study has been tweeted by CFACT’s Rucker; covered by Murdoch media; lauded by GWPF; blogged by Watts, Delingpole, JunkScience and Judith Curry; and written about not once but twice by Michael Bastach at the Daily Caller.
With this sort of reception, you'd expect the paper to be another piece of pro-“pause” propaganda. Yet a quick glance at the study's list of authors shows just the opposite—it is the combined effort of a number of highly respected climate scientists like Michael Mann, Ben Santer and Gerald Meehl, who are more accustomed to deniersphere attacks than embraces.
But of course, the deniers misrepresent the paper. As suggested by the extensive list of authors, the paper is complicated and full of nuance. The bottom line is that Fyfe et al. found that the last decade’s rate of warming has been less intense, relative to the long-term trend. So yes, there has been a slowdown in warming resulting from a confluence of natural factors (more volcanos emitting climate-cooling aerosols, ocean heat cycles, etc.) but by no means has there been any sort of stop, hiatus, or pause that should call into question the need to reduce emissions as soon as possible.
For an honest look at the study and how it demonstrates the way real science progresses, check out posts by Greg Laden or at Hot Whopper. For clarification as to whether Bastach is correct in thinking the study debunks Karl '15, check out co-author Michael Mann's tweet saying that Tom Karl's paper “was an honest study” and that Fyfe '16 “simply provides a different interpretation.” This sort of nuance is likely to be lost on the biggest opponent of Karl’s study, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who is unfortunately continuing his fishing expedition by calling for even more emails from NOAA scientists.
In a more honest alternate reality, the new paper is what a true skeptic might publish—you know, if they were legitimate scientists asking real questions about the natural variation in temperatures overlaid on the human-driving warming trend, and not denier quacks wasting time attacking the record itself, or setting up their own pseudo-scientific society because of the global conspiracy preventing real peer-reviewed journals from publishing their work.
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