Ross McKitrick noted this week that the IPCC still uses the word unequivocal to describe the evidence, but has let a new word slip into its lexicon : hiatus – the global warming hiatus since 1998.
How times have changed. Up until now, to mention this hiatus was to be a climate denier – pure wickedness: to be anti-science and a paid lackey or wannabe paid lackey of Big Oil.
Has the IPCC become a climate denier? Trends change. Differentiating a break in trend from fluctuations around a trend is never easy.
I have not seen a statement of when this hiatus becomes a break in trend. Nor have I seen an estimate of when a return of warming, in what year in the 2020s or 2030s or whenever, will a return in warming make recent trends in global temperatures statistically significant evidence of global warming.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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