The "Global warming hiatus" rejected, again

There's been talk of a "global warming hiatus" for a while now: an apparent slowdown in the rate of global surface temperature increases since 1998. This "hiatus" has helped fuel climate change sceptics.

Two years ago the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released an article which found no detectable slowdown in temperature increases. Modern buoys, which are now primarily used for measuring sea surface temperature, were partly to blame as they tend to record cooler temperatures than ship-based methods, which were used before buoys. When correcting for this bias, amongst other things like changing ship routes, global temperature increases were found to be in line with previous decades.

Today I read a BBC article that reported a new study on this "buoy cold bias", confirming the findings of the NOAA using independent data. 

Now considering the focus of my blog has been on energy, you may be wondering why I chose to write this post. The first reason being that our understanding of the environment and our use of new technologies is ever-evolving. We should always be prepared to challenge findings and we shouldn't be shortsighted about how far advances may go in the future. But I'd imagine that most people are already aware of that.

The other reason is to do with the reaction to the original NOAA article; a US House of Representatives committee tried to subpoena the emails and other communications between the scientists involved in the study. There is, and will likely remain, intense scepticism surrounding anthropogenic climate change and beliefs of some sort of grand climate change conspiracy. None of this is helped by President-elect Trump and his recent cabinet appointments, and so these beliefs now appear to run all the way up to the highest echelons of US government.

This is the reality within which renewable energy and climate change research exists. Even if the number of ardent sceptics is relatively low, it still helps the large numbers of people and organisations who prefer climate change to be a lower-priority matter. This is partly why I believe that renewable energy and zero-emission transport solutions cannot just rely on goodwill and people interested in "saving the environment". There has to be a serious value proposition which combines factors such as cost, convenience and features alongside zero emissions. That is part of how a low/zero carbon future can be achieved in a world where carbon-linked companies continue to have considerable power and support.