What Made February So Hot?

Anthony Watts reports, “One graph proves that record high year of 2015 and record months of 2016 are not AGW driven.”

The graph? This one, by Ryan Maue of WeatherBell:

Maue, ENSO event 2014-2015 sea surface height

Then there’s another, from NOAA/NESDIS:

el-nino-12-14-15-current

Watts writes: “For all those people that want to claim 2015/2016 “proves” that human caused global warming is at work (while at the same time ignoring a record El Niño event as seen above), this graph indisputably proves that the El Niño is the driver of record high temperatures, not carbon dioxide.”

There’s more. The gist: February’s record (back to 1979 in the satellite data) high global average temperature doesn’t spell the death of “the pause” in global warming”; indeed, a year or two won’t. There’s a difference between a relatively brief blip caused by one thing and a long-term trend caused by another.

 

 

Featured image: Ferns in the redwoods, photo by E. Calvin Beisner

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *