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Pause for thought

The recent slowdown (or 'pause') in global surface temperature rise is a hot topic for climate scientists and the wider public. We discuss how climate scientists have tried to communicate the pause and suggest that 'many-to-many' communication offers a key opportunity to directly engage with the public.

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Figure 1: The role of variability in global temperatures.
Figure 2: Global internet search trends.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all those who have contributed to the many fascinating discussions that have helped form our thoughts on communicating complex climate issues on blogs and twitter. We also acknowledge useful suggestions from several other climate scientists that helped improve this Commentary. This Commentary represents the personal opinions of the authors.

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Correspondence to Ed Hawkins.

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Hawkins, E., Edwards, T. & McNeall, D. Pause for thought. Nature Clim Change 4, 154–156 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2150

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