Interesting bringing Bod Carter into the conversation. Now rarely do I find myself in agreement with him, but I do agree with him that anything less than 30 than years (know as a climate normal period) is not going to be very significant (see pages 56 and 57 of his book " The counter consensus").

Specifically the problem we have is that the increasing temperature trend is estimated to be around the 0.18 Deg C per decade and we know that a strong El Niño can produce a temperature spike well in excess of that figure. Similarly, a La Niña produces a dip below the trend, so before we can come to any sensible result for a period shorter than 30 years, we need at a minimum to filter out temperatures fluctuations caused by these factors also we need to consider other factors such as volcanoes, aerosols and the solar cycle. It is clear that period starting in 1997 through to mid 1998 was heavily influenced by a particularly strong El Niño event. So to use that as your starting point is somewhat devious. Nevertheless one still has to carefully pick the only data set able to achieve a flat trend never mind a declining one. The recent articles about the strengthening trade winds are just a reflection on the fact that we have we have had a higher number of La Niña events recently thus reducing recent warming trend.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/FR11_All.gif

http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/files/2013/03/201213-noaa.png

http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/09/what-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/comment-page-2/?wpmp_switcher=mobile&wpmp_tp=2

"The strengthening trade winds"

It's a shame this paper by England and other similar papers will get publicity.

In 2006 one of Matthew England's fellow scientists Gabriel Vecchi, found the exact opposite to what England has found:

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/walker.shtml

Vecchi said:

"The vast loop of winds that drives climate and ocean behavior across the tropical Pacific has weakened by 3.5% since the mid-1800s, and it may weaken another 10% by 2100, according to a study led by University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) scientist Gabriel Vecchi."

Other researchers such as Australian scientist Michael Roderick noted a global decline in wind speeds and coined a term to describe this called "Stilling":

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169411007487

Matthew England is not the first AGW supporter to attempt to explain the stop in temperature by saying winds are carrying the "missing heat" to the ocean bottom. Trenberth has done it:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/abstract

Trenberth used wind "variability" increase to explain the movement of heat to the ocean bottom. Even a cursory look at wind variation as measured by AMSR-E shows a DECLINE in wind variability:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/AMSR-E-ocean-surface-wind-anomalies.png

The real nail in the coffin of this idea that "missing heat" is being carried away to the [unmeasurable, how convenient!] ocean depths is shown by the increase in radiation leaving the Earth from NOAA:

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/olr-s-pg.gif

How can heat in the form of radiation be transferred to the ocean bottom when it is not there because it has left the Earth?

Does anyone ever think about these things? Matthew England has written a paper using cutting edge computers which does not make sense and is contradicted by basic data. GIGO.

In answer to your question steele, 60 years; you figure out why.

OK I am convinced! this is an outrageous fraud.
Scientists coming up with all this baloney? Tony Abbott was spot on the money, confirmed! End of!
We should now start to exact the necessary recompense for monies wasted. Let the perpetrators start paying back what has been stolen

Steele, you have confirmed beyond any doubt, that you do not have a clue.
To a realist the cessation of warming means that the warming has ceased. To a fraud backer it means that some nonsense must be dreamed up to base an argument that warming has not ceased.

The fraud backers came up with “a climatically significant period” as a basis to argue that when global warming stopped. It had not really stopped until a climatically significant period had passed. A refined form of lying in contrast to their standard blatant form of falsehood.

Steele now asks a Realist to supply details of a fraud backing lie. What is the length of time applicable to the fiction concocted by the fraud backers?

In regard to presentation of standard blatant lies, fraud backer Obama is a good example:

“On multiple occasions, and most recently on May 30th of last year, President Obama has said, and this is a quote he has used several times, he said that 'the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago' and that 'the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or ten years ago.'
"Both statements are false, and through letters to you, Ms. McCarthy, and on the record in this Committee, we've asked the EPA to provide us with the data backing up these two statements, the two statements made by the president, but they don't have any data and referred us to the UN IPCC. And, their scientists, apparently, the EPA thought they were the source of this.
"Well, we went there and they had nothing to back it up, so apparently the president just made that up.”
http://eaglerising.com/4224/conservative-senator-calls-obama-liar-global-warming/

Steele, you must be proud to be a fraud backer and have the courage to make such a fool of yourself.

Dear Cohenite,

Thank you, 60 years it is then.

Well putting that figure into the Wood for Trees calculator that you kindly furnished us we get the following;

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1955/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1955/plot/gistemp/from:1955

All upward trends and all statistically significant.

So you will have to explain to us why to assert the world has stopped warming when your own parameters show that over a climatically significant period the opposite has occurred.

Dear Leo Lane,

One moment please while I search your post for any data/evidence to support your opinion.

Back now. Didn't take long. Opinion only I'm afraid.

Oh well, perhaps next time.

Leo

Chucking unsubstantiated insults around does not further your case nor does it add anything useful to the debate.

In 1935 the international meteorological organisation IMO agreed that an average of conditions over a period of 30 years would be defined as as a climate normal period, with the first period being defined as 1901 to 1930. Now much was made of this by people such as Bob Carter previously when he wished to dismiss some 30 odd years of warming as not significant. So it is perfectly reasonable to use the same argument for a considerably shorter period. In any event the warming has not stopped it has just slowed down due to a run of La Nina years.

http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/normals.html

Cohenite
I see nothing controversial about Mathew England paper. Whether there has been a drop in global wind speeds over the last century or shorter periods is not the issue. The equatorial trade winds only represent a small portion of the globe so are unlikely to have much impact on global average wind speed. Anyway the data clearly shows, they suddenly increased around 1998 so regardless of previous studies his paper is consistent with the data.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8511/westtradesleadbl4.png

I have not been able to find a more up to date graph. Note for some reason the author has decided to reverse the sign of the data so moving in to the negative area actually means an increasing wind strength.

El Nino and and La Nina events are clearly related to equatorial trade wind strengths as noted below.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/17/the-trade-winds-drive-the-enso/