Asheville, N.C., June 4, 2015 — A new article published in Science, and co-authored by LMI climate analytics expert James McMahon, refutes the notion that climate change is “on hiatus,” finding that global surface temperatures, in fact, continue to increase. The research was led by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) in Asheville, N.C., and addresses the “global warming hiatus,” a much-studied phenomenon referring to the period of relatively little increase in globally averaged surface temperatures since about 1998. By performing a new global surface temperature analysis that contains improved time-dependent bias corrections for ocean sea surface temperatures, a more comprehensive set of land surface air temperature stations, and two additional years of data that were not available to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, researchers discovered that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC—especially in recent decades—and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. McMahon, who serves as senior advisor to the article’s lead author, NCEI Director Thomas R. Karl, has significant experience in physics and atmospheric chemistry, offering a complementary analytical perspective to NOAA’s climate scientists. “LMI works with our clients to offer practical solutions to complex problems; measuring the globally averaged surface temperature of the Earth is one of those problems,” McMahon said. “When scientists from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information were analyzing the data, they found that explaining the changes was a complex task. LMI was an integral part of the team that helped distill the complicated science into easy to understand language and figures.” “LMI's mission to serve at the highest levels requires us to push the limits of understanding on the biggest challenges facing our clients,” McMahon said. “Understanding the risks and opportunities posed by the changing climate will continue to grow in importance for our clients. To respond to this growing need, LMI is strengthening our climate services offering, including providing strategic and scientific advice to clients such as NOAA.”
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