Global Temperature Standstill Gains IPCC Support

London, 22 February: The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) welcomes that Dr Rajenda Pachauri, the chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has acknowledged the reality of the post-1997 standstill in global average temperatures.The GWPF has been highlighting the global warming standstill for many years against fervent denial by climate activists. Recently, Nasa’s James Hansen also recognised that global temperatures have not risen for more than a decade.“Even though the scientific case for the standstill is secure, and well represented in peer-reviewed scientific literature, it will surely help the climate debate now that the IPCC chairman has confirmed its existence,” said Dr David Whitehouse, the GWPF's science editor.The post-1997 global annual average temperature standstill is one of the most important aspects of current climate science. Its recognition by the chair of the IPCC means there is now growing pressure that this empirical fact will receive full analysis in the forthcoming AR5 report.The GWPF points out that Dr Pachauri’s assertion that it will take a temperature standstill of "30-40 years at least" to affect theories of man-made global warming is without a scientific basis. “The 17-year standstill already strains climate models, and if it continues for much longer it will demonstrate that the climate models on which the IPCC has based its assumptions are inadequate,” Dr Whitehouse said.*Interview with Dr Pachauri in The Australian 22 February.