Global warming, caused by greenhouse gases from human activity, is causing the earth to become warmer each year and cause historic highs. That has been the dominant narrative in our world today.

It is not difficult to realize that there is something amiss with this warming narrative, when our thermometers and satellites don’t record historic highs linearly, i.e., incremental temperatures on consecutive years, with every new year surpassing the record high of the previous year.

For example, the highest warming departure—from the average global temperature levels—for 2016 was higher than the record highs of 2017 and 2018. Also, we have many cities whose all-time record highs are not from the recent 10 years.

You don’t have to be a scientist to ask, “Why are we not experiencing record high temperatures on consecutive years, if global warming is causing temperatures to rise every year?”

The answer to that question has multiple facets and is critical to the public discourse on climate change.

1. Larger Warming Trend and the Impact of Shorter Weather Phenomenon

The current warming trend began when the Little Ice Age ended in the 17^th century. Since the 18^th century, there has been a gradual increase in global temperature levels. As a result, climatologists are well aware that more recent years are likely to be warmer than earlier ones.

However, various localized weather phenomena and other global climatic events can cause disruptions to this gradual 200-year plus warming trend, resulting in unusually cooler and unusually warmer years.

Such was the case of the record high temperatures in 2016, which were caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon and not by global climate. Once the El Niño ended in late 2016, the temperatures fell back, resulting in record cold winter in 2017–18 in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

2. Lack of Warming and a Potential Cooling Trend

There is no guarantee that the Modern Warm Period (1800–present) will continue forever. For example, there has been a significant decline in the rate of warming during the past two decades, a fact that is scientifically acknowledged by the most prominent climate scientists of our era.

The cause for this hiatus, or pause, is still unknown. It occurred at a time when climate scientists least expected it and were anticipating a rapid increase in temperatures due to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

The so-called forecasts and warnings about future climate are based on faulty computer climate models. That is exactly why the alarmists couldn’t predict either the 20-year hiatus or the post-El Niño decline in global temperatures.

It is because of this that our record highs and lows don’t occur linearly. No one, and no model, can predict the disruptions to the warming trend, or when it might end.

Will 2019 produce record high temperatures? Maybe, maybe not. We have no scientific basis for predicting future climate states within the narrow ranges physically possible barring some catastrophic event like an asteroid colliding with the earth.

Even if 2019 and the next few years do produce record high temperatures, it is critical for us to remember that these record highs are only for the era in which global temperature measurements were done using thermometers and satellites.

Before our thermometers and satellites began recording temperatures, our climate went through various periods of higher and lower temperatures, which we have come to know from proxy temperature datasets such as tree-rings and ice cores. So, these “record highs” are not actual all-time highs, but only the highest recorded measurements in recent history. With a weak solar activity probable during for the next two decades, it won’t be a surprise if the hiatus (lack in warming) continues for the next two decades. We cannot rule out a possible global cooling, too, as a similar weak solar activity caused a global cooling during the Little Ice Age in the 17^th century.

Featured image by Olivia Colacicco on Unsplash.