Long-Term Warming and Short-Term Variation

Figure 33.15

Texas Tech University
Katharine Hayhoe

This figure appears in chapter 33 of the Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment report.

http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/appendices/climate-science-supplement/graphics/long-term-warming-and-short-term-variation

Observations of global mean surface air temperature show that although there can be short periods with little or even no significant upward trend (red trend lines in shaded areas), global temperature continues to rise unabated over long-term climate timescales (black trend line). The recent period, 1998-2012, is another example of a short-term pause embedded in the underlying warming trend. The differences between short-term trends and the underlying (long-term) trend are often associated with modes of natural variability such as El Niño and La Niña that redistribute heat between the ocean and atmosphere. (Data from NOAA NCDC).

When citing this figure, please reference NOAA NCDC.

Free to use with credit to the original figure source.

This figure was created on October 23, 2013.

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