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Heat hide and seek

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 158–161 (2014)Cite this article

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Natural variability can explain fluctuations in surface temperatures but can it account for the current slowdown in warming?

Where is the heat? That is the question on the minds of many scientists, and many climate change sceptics. The 'global warming hiatus' — the fact that globally averaged air temperatures have not increased as quickly in the past decade as they have in previous decades1,2 — is a hot topic, so to speak. It even has its own spotlight in Chapter 9 of the Working Group I report of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report3.

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Figure 1: Ocean heat content from 0 to 300 m (grey), 700 m (blue) and total depth (violet) from ORAS4, as represented by its five ensemble members.
Figure 2: The Pacific Decadal Oscillation based on an empirical orthogonal function analysis of sea surface temperature anomalies with the global mean removed from 1900 to May 2013 in the 20° N – 70° N and 110° E – 100° W region of the North Pacific.

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  1. Lisa Goddard is at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, Palisades, New York 10964, USA,

    Lisa Goddard

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  1. Lisa Goddard
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Correspondence to Lisa Goddard.

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Goddard, L. Heat hide and seek. Nature Clim Change 4, 158–161 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2155

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