The New York Times reports: Scientists have long labored to explain what appeared to be a slowdown in global warming that began at the start of this century as, at the same time, heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxide were soaring. The slowdown, sometimes inaccurately described as a halt or hiatus, became a major talking point for people critical of climate science.

Now, new research suggests the whole thing may have been based on incorrect data.

When adjustments are made to compensate for recently discovered problems in the way global temperatures were measured, the slowdown largely disappears, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared in a scientific paper published Thursday. And when the particularly warm temperatures of 2013 and 2014 are averaged in, the slowdown goes away entirely, the agency said.

“The notion that there was a slowdown in global warming, or a hiatus, was based on the best information we had available at the time,” said Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information, a NOAA unit in Asheville, N.C. “Science is always working to improve.” [Continue reading…]

ClimateWire reports: Living in a warming ocean won’t just be uncomfortably hot for marine animals, it’s also likely to suffocate them.

According to a newly published study in the journal Science, the combined stresses of rising ocean temperatures and the resulting drop in oxygen levels will put too much physiological strain on marine animals living closer to the equator.

As water temperatures rise, the animal’s metabolism speeds up, increasing the demand for more oxygen. At the same time, the rising temperatures reduce the amount of oxygen that the upper ocean can hold, so the concentration of the gas will go down, said Curtis Deutsch, the study’s lead author and an associate professor in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington, Seattle.

“Put these two things together and it’s kind of a double whammy,” he said. [Continue reading…]