Nature does not care what we think about it. Indeed, nature does not care about us at all. But we should care about nature. Above all, we should care about nature if our actions are affecting it adversely. Probably the most important way in which we are affecting nature is via the climate. Yet our response is foolish denial and fond hope. Nature will not be impressed.
What nature is doing at present is heating the planet. Of this no serious doubt remains. The global warming “pause” of 1998-2013 is definitively over. Even before recent temperature rises to the highest on record, the notion of a pause was absurd. In 1998 there was a strong El Niño — a feature of which is high global temperatures. What was remarkable is that the years after 1998 remained so hot.
Both last year and this one, with another strong El Niño, temperatures have hit records. A straight line between the peaks of January 1958 and February 2016 lies above the temperature in all intervening months. The same is true for a line drawn between March 1990 and February 2016. Twelve-month and 60-month moving averages give a similar picture. No slowdown in underlying rates of temperature rises is happening. After this El Niño another purported pause might occur — but probably at a higher average level than during the previous one. (See charts.)