Sunday, June 19, 2011

Warming Since 1995 Now Significant

The other day Phil Jones said that, based on the most recent data, warming since 1995 is now statistically significant.

Of course, Jones' earlier remark was always misinterpreted by skeptics, and the Daily Mail completely botched it (probably on purpose) with this headline. Jones never said there was no global warming since 1995 -- he said there was no statistically significant warming since 1995 if you take 95% as the measure of statistical significance. There's nothing magical about 95%, and the warming trend was significant at the 90% level. That's high enough that I doubt anyone would place a bet against it. In any case 15 or 16 years is too short of a time scale to be making conclusions about climate anyway.

Hopefully this will now be put to rest (though I doubt it).

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