Global warming hiatus Global warming hiatus A global warming hiatus, also sometimes referred to as a global warming pause or a global warming slowdown, is a period of relatively little change in globally averaged surface temperatures. In the current episode of global warming many such 15-year periods appear in the surface temperature record, along with robust evidence of the long-term warming trend. Such a "hiatus" is shorter than the 30-year periods that climate is classically averaged over. Publicity has surrounded claims of a global warming hiatus during the period 1998–2013. The exceptionally warm El Niño year of 1998 was an outlier from the
Global warming hiatus difference to the temperature record, but the small change in recent years was sufficient to indicate that there had been no hiatus in the period from 1998 to 2014. They used the IPCC definition of the supposed hiatus as a slowdown in rate of temperature increase from 1998 to 2012, compared to the rate from 1951 to 2012, and again found no support for the idea of a "hiatus" or slowdown. Natural climate variability can appear to slow down "surface" warming over short periods, but does not refute long-term climate change trends. Short-term hiatus periods of global warming are compatible