Steps and cycles

Andy Chadwick* explains how interaction between continuous trend with natural climate cycles produces the observed stepped pattern of global warming Climate-change ‘sceptics’ have made great mileage out of the current hiatus in observed global warming. Atmospheric temperatures have not really increased since the turn of the 21st Century, a fact frequently cited as incompatible with, or even disproving, global warming. These same commentators draw a discreet veil over the fact that temperatures also didn’t rise between 1940 and 1970 - an inconvenient truth for them, since that pause was followed by 30 years of rapid warming.