Ask A Climate Scientist – a Pause in Warming?

  • Released Monday, October 21, 2013
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Is there a pause in global warming?

This question was posed to Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Josh Willis as part of NASA's Ask A Climate Scientist campaign.

Josh gets asked a lot if there has been a pause in global warming, because temperatures aren't increasing as fast as they were a decade ago. No, he says, global warming is definitely still increasing. We see more heat being trapped in the oceans, and sea levels are rising. Look at the sea level record for the last decade. It's going up like gangbusters, hasn't slowed down.

There's not really a pause in global warming. Sometimes there's natural fluctuations and we warm up a little faster in one decade and a little slower in another decade, but global warming, human-caused climate change? Josh says, "that's definitely going right on up in there. We haven't slowed down at all."

See more of NASA's answers to your questions on climate science.

Is there a pause in global warming? No, says Josh Willis from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. See more of NASA's answers to your questions on climate science.

For complete transcript, click here.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

This page was originally published on Monday, October 21, 2013.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:51 PM EDT.

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Tapes

This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:
  • Ask A Climate Scientist (ID: 2013077)
    Wednesday, September 4, 2013 at 4:00AM
    Produced by - Walt Feimer (HTSI)