As we’ve documented here on many occasions, some climate scientists like to assert that recent observations of weather and short-term climate are “consistent with” predictions from climate models (see also this essay).

A lot of attention has been paid to recent global average temperature trends, because they have not shown an increase since 1998, 2000, or 2001 (to pick three years often cited in such discussions). An Australian newspaper recently commented on this:

A careful analysis of global temperature graphs from each of the measurement agencies confirm that – despite variations between them – there has not been any notable warming since 2000. Depending on which graphs you use, global temperatures since 2000 have been more or less flat. Some, such as the GISS data, show a modest rise, while others show negligible movement and even a small fall in recent years.

Sceptics like to use graphs that date from 1998 because that was the hottest year on record due to El Nino influences and therefore the temperature trends for the decade look flattest when 1998 is the starting point.

But ultimately this is a phony war because most mainstream scientists do not dispute that global temperatures have remained relatively flat during the past decade. Where they differ with the sceptics is on how this outcome should be interpreted.

“The changes in temperature over the past 10 years have basically plateaued,” says Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW. “But scientists did not anticipate a gradual year-by-year warming in temperature. What matters is the long-term trend. This outcome does not change any of the science but it does change the spin climate deniers can put on it.”

What I found most interesting in the article, aside from the denigration of people wanting to understand recent trends, was an assertion by Monash University’s Amanda Lynch (climate scientist and former faculty colleague from here at Colorado) who stated that it might be 40 years (!) of no warming/cooling before observations would be inconsistent with predictions:

Most scientists are adamant that any assessment of climate change based on only 10 years of data is not only meaningless but reckless.

“From a climate standpoint it is far too short a period to have any significance,” says Amanda Lynch, a climate change scientist at Melbourne’s Monash University. “What we are seeing now is consistent with our understanding of variability between decades. If we hung about for another 30 years and it kept going down, then you might start to think there is something we don’t understand. But the evidence at this point suggests this is not something we should hang around and wait for.”

Excuse me? Another 30 years? That is a record in the “consistent with” chronicles.

Meantime, I continue to applaud serious and rigorous efforts to compare observations with predictions, in real time, and efforts to interpret their significance. The best example of such an effort continues to be the solid (but apparently reckless;-) work by Lucia Liljegren.