Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2: Global mean land-ocean temperature change (anomaly) from 1880-2013,
relative to the 1951-1980 average temperature
The black line is the annual average and the dotted line is the 5-year running average. The vertical bars show uncertainty
estimates.
Source: NASA GISS, available at
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
.
With an anomaly plot, the scale is highly magnified compared to the scale of Figure 1,
and shows the smallest of variances within the range of approximately 1°C (1.8°F) in the
vertical axis of the graph. From such depictions, claims that global warming is occurring
rapidly are backed up by the steep slope of the visual depiction, but in reality, as shown in
Figure 1, global temperature has been remarkably stable for over a century, with variances
that are small when compared to the scale of human temperature experience. So, concern
about the problem doesn't sell well in the broad court of public opinion. However, as you
can see in Figure 2 at the upper right, the temperature plot has stopped rising, and for over
a decade has remained close to the 0.6°C line. This period of hiatus in temperature rise has
become known as 'the pause.'
Thisispartofthereasonthatterminology usedtodescribethephenomenonhasshifted
from 'global warming' to 'climate change,' as climate change can be used as a catch-all
phrase without the need to address the inconvenient pause in warming.
