Good explainer on the so-called (and illusory) global warming "hiatus"

Using basic statistical measures, Stefan Rahmstorf writing at RealClimate explains the reality of what's been happening recently, global temperature-wise, and why we're confident it's happening, and not stopping.

Recent global warming trends: significant or paused or what?

Here's an excerpt to whet one's statistical appetite to read the whole thing (and I specifically recommend what he says "In summary".)

"Over a short interval, random variability can create large temporary trends. (If today is 5 °C warmer than yesterday, than this is clearly, unequivocably warmer! But it is not “statistically significant” in the sense that it couldn’t just be natural variability – i.e. weather.)

The lesson of course is to use a sufficiently long time interval, as in Fig. 1, if you want to find out something about the signal of climate change rather than about short-term “noise”. All climatologists know this and the IPCC has said so very clearly. “Climate skeptics”, on the other hand, love to pull short bits out of noisy data to claim that they somehow speak against global warming – see my 2009 Guardian article Climate sceptics confuse the public by focusing on short-term fluctuations on Björn Lomborg’s misleading claims about sea level."

Yeah, he lays out on the line (the trend line) pretty well in this article.  Read it, whether or not you're a climate skeptic.  If  you're a climate skeptic, try to learn something.