{"id":430828,"date":"2026-03-13T12:43:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=430828"},"modified":"2026-03-13T12:43:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:43:28","slug":"no-time-the-planet-isnt-heating-faster-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=430828","title":{"rendered":"No, TIME, the Planet Isn\u2019t \u2018Heating Faster Than Ever\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From The Climate Realism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

TIME <\/em>claims in a recent article, \u201cThe Planet is Heating Faster Than Ever Before<\/a>,\u201d that global warming has dramatically accelerated since 2015. This is demonstrably false. Observational satellite data disagree with that claim, showing short-term variability driven by natural, short-lived, events, with current temperatures now below the 2015\u20132016 El Ni\u00f1o peak. In addition, proxy data from the past also show many periods over which temperatures shifted much more rapidly and steeply, both upwards and downwards, than during the recent period of modest warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The TIME <\/em>article cites research which claims warming has nearly doubled in pace since 2015, representing a sharp acceleration and warning the world could cross 1.5\u00b0C of warming within a few years. The claim rests on statistical adjustments that \u201cfilter out\u201d natural variability such as El Ni\u00f1o and volcanic effects. That filtering is central to the narrative. The acceleration appears after removing natural influences from the temperature record, that are clearly displayed in the raw data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we examine the observational satellite record itself, seen below, the story looks very different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Version 6.1 global lower troposphere dataset<\/a> shows a long-term warming trend of +0.16\u00b0C per decade from January 1979 through February 2026. That trend has remained essentially stable for years. There is no visible post-2015 inflection point in the long-term slope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart shows the strong 2015\u20132016 El Ni\u00f1o spike rising above +0.7\u00b0C relative to the 1991\u20132020 mean. After that peak, temperatures declined. The most recent value \u2014 +0.39\u00b0C in February 2026 \u2014 remains well below that earlier El Ni\u00f1o high-water mark in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If warming had truly \u201cdoubled\u201d in rate beginning in 2015, today\u2019s anomalies should sit well above the 2016 peak. They do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also important to understand what caused some of the more recent spikes in the record. The unusually warm values in 2024 stand out in the UAH time series. But those occurred in the wake of the 2022 Hunga Tonga\u2013Hunga Ha\u2019apai volcanic eruption<\/a>, which injected an unprecedented amount of water vapor into the stratosphere<\/a>. That injection temporarily enhanced radiative forcing, aka the greenhouse effect, because water vapor is in fact the strongest greenhouse gas<\/a>. It was a short-term perturbation \u2014 not evidence of a structural acceleration in the underlying greenhouse-driven trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UAH report itself describes 2024 as \u201canomalously warm,\u201d and the data show a return toward the longer-term trend through 2025 and into early 2026. That behavior \u2014 spike and partial retreat \u2014 is characteristic of natural variability superimposed on gradual warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIME\u2019s framing depends heavily on adjusted surface datasets where natural influences are mathematically removed. But climate is a long-term average<\/a> of what actually happens in the real world, including El Ni\u00f1o events, volcanic eruptions, and short-term atmospheric changes. Removing those factors to produce a smoothed \u201cunderlying\u201d curve does not demonstrate that the observable climate system has entered a new accelerated regime, though it does conveniently serve to advance the anthropogenic global warming narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-term satellite trend remains modest and steady at +0.16\u00b0C per decade. That is not a doubling. It is not a sharp upward trend; it is a continuation of a decades-long gradual increase punctuated by temporary spikes and dips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate change is measured over decades, not from one El Ni\u00f1o peak to the next. When the full satellite record is considered \u2014 including the 2016 peak, the 2024 anomaly, and the current February 2026 value \u2014 the claim that the planet is heating \u201cfaster than ever before\u201d since 2015 is not supported by the observational data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor is it supported by paleo-climate proxy data which shows much more significant temperature shifts<\/a> over short time periods multiple times throughout history, long before humans began emitting significant amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first take away from this article is that Time<\/em> needs some basic fact checkers with an understanding of the English language. Data clearly demonstrates that the present warming is not \u201cfaster than ever before,\u201d and certainly not larger. The UAH record shows gradual warming with natural variability layered on top. It does not show runaway acceleration. If Time <\/em>had bothered to look at actual data rather than uncritically regurgitating a press release, perhaps, if they were honest, its would have published a significantly different story \u2013 one with a far less alarming and patently inaccurate headline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TIME claims in a recent article, \u201cThe Planet is Heating Faster Than Ever Before,\u201d that global warming has dramatically accelerated since 2015. This is demonstrably false. Observational satellite data disagree with that claim, showing short-term variability driven by natural, short-lived, events, with current temperatures now below the 2015\u20132016 El Ni\u00f1o peak. In addition, proxy data from the past also show many periods over which temperatures shifted much more rapidly and steeply, both upwards and downwards, than during the recent period of modest warming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":430848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[691819743,691819287,691818087,691822640,691835459,691841871,691819657],"class_list":{"0":"post-430828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-propaganda","9":"tag-el-nino-2","10":"tag-global-warming","11":"tag-satellite-data","12":"tag-time","13":"tag-university-of-alabama-in-huntsville-uah","14":"tag-water-vapor","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AQNDJTOEkiuOGrMs73KdjsZ7B3AY92HHsQaWcdPg266YWK1RX3KiM-udN0qfZwmwVw761t2sQ73GAJ35PktKrZtxcM25ldtXeIvRQOGdX7GMYm6qshCnBEMVhZ3aArxd.jpeg?fit=1224%2C934&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1O4Q","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":327807,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=327807","url_meta":{"origin":430828,"position":0},"title":"Climate Fact-Check April 2024 Edition","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"11\/05\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"As usual, we warn that these and other \u201caverage temperatures\u201d are highly uncertain guesstimates that have no physical meaning and were exclusively invented for the global warming con. 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