A government activist’s comment related to a Rhode Island–specific report on climate change brought something to mind:

The planet “is warming, it has been warming. The last two decades have been the warmest in the history of climate records,” Kenneth Kunkel said.

This assertion made me wonder what the update was on the 15-year pause in global warming that Monique wrote about ten years ago.  It doesn’t take much searching to find that the charts saw a significant jump shortly after that post, followed by what appears to be another pause, overall.

The ratcheting nature of these changes is odd, and while there may be explanations, they aren’t all in the service of the narrative of doom.  Maybe the planet can absorb some of the effect for a while, before some system is overwhelmed.  Or perhaps new sensors came onboard, finding more warming.  I recall a grassroots investigation, when the blogosphere was ascendant, of the sensors finding that at least some of the recorded increase had to do with changes to the immediate environment of the sensors themselves (nearby pavement, for example).

In any event, causing immediate harm to the people of Rhode Island isn’t going to turn the curve around.