Here’s my second Cranky Uncle video, debunking the myth that global warming has stopped over the last decade or so. This animated video is adapted from cartoons in the Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book.
The key fact relevant to this myth is that our planet has continued to build up heat over the last few decades, at a rate of over 4 atomic bombs worth of heat per second (some recent data indicates it’s currently in the ballpark of 6 atomic bombs worth of heat).
While the planet continues to build up heat overall, this heat “sloshes” around the climate system. For example, ocean cycles like El Niño cause heat to shift between the atmosphere and the ocean. This results in surface temperature jumping up and down from year to year. So a simple technique to cast doubt on the reality of global warming is to cherry pick short time periods where it looks like temperature is not rising.
Of course, cherry picking like this makes as much sense as arguing that a sinking ship isn’t actually sinking because the bow is rising. It fails to consider the bigger picture!
If you want to delve into this myth in greater detail, with relevant scientific research, we debunk the myth “global warming stopped in 1998” at Skeptical Science. We also debunk the myth in our MOOC Denial101x: Making Sense of Climate Science Denial:
Check out the full list of Cranky Uncle videos on YouTube.
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