Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’.

Climate myths are like zombies – you shoot them through the heart, walk away thinking they’re dead, and then they pop back up behind you and try once again to eat your brain.

So it is with Stage 1 climate denial and the myth that the Earth isn’t warming. It’s so persistent that it’s related to the 5th, 9th, and 49th-most popular myths in the Skeptical Science database. Climate deniers have been peddling the myth ‘no warming since [insert date]’ for over a decade.

It’s a popular myth among those who benefit from maintaining the status quo because if the problem doesn’t exist, obviously there’s no need for action to solve it. And it’s an incredibly easy argument that can be made at any time, using the telltale technique of climate denial known as cherry picking.

I created a video to illustrate this point. The key is that the Earth has natural short-term temperature oscillations caused by factors like the El Niño/La Niña cycle. El Niño events temporarily warm temperatures at the Earth’s surface, while La Niña events cause temporary surface cooling. When you combine these up-and-down cycles with a long-term human-caused global warming trend and various other noisy influences, you get a bumpy temperature rise that allows for cherry picking of periods without warming:



That’s what it looks like with artificial data. Using real global surface temperature data from NASA, I created a popular graphic called The Escalator, which has been featured the PBS documentary Climate of Doubt and used by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the Senate floor. The video below shows The Escalator with data updated through 2016:

Sea ice hit record lows in both poles in November
Both the Arctic and Antarctica saw less sea ice this November than at any time on record, ice decreased in the crucial Barents Sea even as winter set in.

Exxon Has to Release Decades of Internal Climate Change Documents, a Massachusetts Judge Rules

A Massachusetts judge has refused to excuse Exxon Mobil (xom, -0.54%) from a request by the state's attorney general to hand over decades worth of documents on its views on climate change, state officials said on Wednesday.

The decision by Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Heidi Brieger denying Exxon 's request for an order exempting it from handing over the documents represents a legal victory for Attorney General Maura Healey, who is investigating the world's largest publicly traded oil company's climate policies.

"This order affirms our longstanding authority to investigate fraud," Healey said on Twitter following the decision, adding that Exxon "must come clean about what it knew about climate change."

Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said the company was "reviewing the decision to determine next steps."

Tuesday's hearing on Senator Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General: Climate and Krispy Kreme

On Tuesday, climate change made a momentary appearance during the confirmation hearing of Senator Jeff Sessions (R–AL) to be attorney general. In the past, Sessions has acknowledged that human activity may be warming the planet but has fiercely fought government efforts to curb emissions of warming gases including carbon dioxide and methane. During the hearing, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D–RI) asked Sessions how he would approach “making a decision about the facts of climate change” if a case before the Department of Justice required it.

In response, Sessions said:

“I don't deny that we have global warming. In fact, the theory of it always struck me as plausible, and it's the question of how much is happening and what the reaction would be to it. So, that's what I would hope we could see occur."

Here is the whole exchange, according to an unofficial transcript published by CNN.

WHITEHOUSE: You may be in a position as attorney general to either enforce laws or bring actions that relate to the problem of carbon emissions and the changes that are taking place both physically and chemically in our atmosphere and oceans as a result of the flood of carbon emissions that we've had.

It is the political position of the Republican Party in the Senate, as I have seen it, that this is not a problem, that we don't need to do anything about it, that the facts aren't real, and that we should all do nothing whatsoever. That's the Senate.

You as attorney general of the United States may be asked to make decisions for our nation that require a factual predicate that you determine as the basis for making your decision. In making a decision about the facts of climate change, to whom will you turn? Will you, for instance, trust the military, all of whose branches agree that climate change is a serious problem of real import for them?

Will you trust our national laboratories, all of whom say the same? Will you trust our national science agencies—by the way, NASA is driving a rover around on the surface of mars right now. So, they're [sic] scientists, I think, are pretty good.

I don't think there is a single scientific society, I don't think there is a single credited university, I don't think there is a single nation that denies this basic set of facts.

And, so, if that situation is presented to you and you have to make a decision based on the facts, what can give us any assurance that you will make those facts based on real facts and real science?

SESSIONS: That's a good and fair question, and honesty and integrity in that process is required. And if the facts justify a position on one side or the other on a case, I would try to utilize those facts in an honest and appropriate way.

I've not—I don't deny that we have global warming. In fact, the theory of it always struck me as plausible, and it's the question of how much is happening and what the reaction would be to it. So, that's what I would hope we could see occur.

WHITEHOUSE: Indeed, I'll bet you dollars against those lovely Krispy Kreme donuts we have out back that if you went down to the University of Alabama and if you talked to the people who fish out of mobile, they had already seen the changes in the ocean. They'd be able to measure the PH changes and they'd know the acidification is happening, and there's no actual dispute about that except in the politics of Washington, D.C.

SESSIONS: I recognize the great interest in time and you've committed to the issue and I value your opinion.

WHITEHOUSE: I do come from an ocean state, and we do measure the rise in the sea level and we measure the warming of Narragansett Bay and we measure the change in PH. It's serious for us, Senator. Thank you. My time has expired.