What Caused the Global Surface Warming Hiatus of 1998–2013?

Abstract

Research into the mechanisms for the global warming slowdown or “hiatus” of 1998–2013 is reviewed here. Observational and modeling studies identify tropical Pacific sea surface temperature variability as a major pacemaker of global mean surface temperature (GMST) change, as corroborated by the GMST increase following a major El Nino event. Specifically, the decadal cooling of the tropical Pacific contributes to the recent global warming hiatus. This tropical Pacific pacemaker effect appears larger for decadal than interannual variability, but the decadal effect remains to be quantified from observations. Our critical review of the literature reveals that the internal and radiatively forced GMST changes are distinct in pattern, energetics, mechanism, and predictability. In contrast to greenhouse gas-induced warming that is spatially uniform in sign and driven by energy perturbations, internal variability in GMST is an order of magnitude smaller than spatial variations, for which ocean-atmosphere interaction is of first-order importance while planetary energetics is not. In fact, decadal variability in GMST is poorly correlated with net radiation at the top of the atmosphere, highlighting the need to distinguish internal and forced GMST change in planetary energy budget. While the planetary energy budget can now be closed observationally over multi-decadal periods, the recent hiatus highlights the need and challenges to measure and quantify decadal changes in both global ocean heat uptake (e.g., for the effect of radiative forcing on the hiatus) and heat redistribution in the ocean. Hiatus research has led to a wide recognition of the importance of internal variability for GMST trends over a decade and longer. The strengthened connection between the climate variability and change communities is an important legacy of hiatus research.