Program

Global Mean Surface Temperatures (GMST) reflected a smaller rate of warming during 1998-2012, compared to the warming in the latter half of the 20th Century. This recent 15-year period has been termed the “global warming hiatus.” There are a number of uncertainties and knowledge gaps regarding the hiatus. This talk/paper reviews these issues, and also posits insights from a collective set of diverse information that help us understand what we do and do not know. One salient insight is that the GMST phenomenon is a surface characteristic that does not represent a slowdown in warming of the planet, but rather is an energy redistribution within the oceans. The amount of heat absorbed by ocean is so great that the heat redistributed from atmosphere during the so-called hiatus period is lost in noise. Better understanding of ocean distribution and redistribution of heat will help better monitor Earth's energy budget. A review of recent scientific publications on the “hiatus” shows the difficulty and complexities in pinpointing the oceanic sink of the missing atmospheric heat which defines the “hiatus. Advances in “hiatus” research and outlooks (recommendations) are given in this presentation/paper.