[...]
Pulling this all together, we can reach the following conclusions:The global warming pause is real.
The global warming pause is significant.
The global warming pause is not likely to be permanent.
A future resumption of global warming at pre-pause rates – or even modestly accelerated rates – would not validate IPCC global warming predictions, and would instead continue to undermine the IPCC’s predictions of very rapid 21st century global warming.
The most meaningful aspect of the global warming pause isn’t that temperatures have flattened for 17 years, but rather that the global warming pause extends and solidifies the longer-term record of smaller-than-predicted global temperature rise.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/08/07/global-warming-pause-puts-crisis-in-perspective/http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/08/06/nasa-climate-scientist-explains-15-year-global-warming-hiatus/Updated list of 29 excuses for the 18 year ‘pause’ in global warming – ‘If you can’t explain the ‘pause’, you can’t explain the cause…’An updated list of at least 29 excuses for the 18 year 'pause' in global warming, including recent scientific papers, media quotes, blogs, and related debunkings:
1) Low solar activity
2) Oceans ate the global warming [debunked] [debunked] [debunked]
3) Chinese coal use [debunked]
4) Montreal Protocol
5) What ‘pause’? [debunked] [debunked] [debunked] [debunked]
6) Volcanic aerosols [debunked]
7) Stratospheric Water Vapor
8 ) Faster Pacific trade winds [debunked]
9) Stadium Waves
10) ‘Coincidence!’
11) Pine aerosols
12) It's "not so unusual" and "no more than natural variability"
13) "Scientists looking at the wrong 'lousy' data" http://
14) Cold nights getting colder in Northern Hemisphere
15) We forgot to cherry-pick models in tune with natural variability [debunked]
16) Negative phase of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
17) AMOC ocean oscillation
18) "Global brightening" has stopped
19) "Ahistorical media"
20) "It's the hottest decade ever" Decadal averages used to hide the 'pause' [debunked]
21) Few El Ninos since 1999
22) Temperature variations fall "roughly in the middle of the AR4 model results"
23) "Not scientifically relevant"
24) The wrong type of El Ninos
25) Slower trade winds [debunked]
26) The climate is less sensitive to CO2 than previously thought [see also]
27) PDO and AMO natural cycles and here
28) ENSO
29) Solar cycle driven ocean temperature variations
UPDATE: It only took a few more days to reach #30:
30) Warming Atlantic caused cooling Pacific [paper] [debunked by Trenberth & Wunsch]
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/07/updated-list-of-29-excuses-for-18-year.html