That Enso has the potential to both mask and exaggerate the temperature signal cause by climate change, however the difference appears to be in our interpretation of that.
I think we agree on this and it's also why I deal in a minimum of a decade when looking at the climate, and preferably longer.
In this particular case I've only used this last decade of data to show that the current evidence doesn't support the claim that warming is accelerating.
I think one of the misconceptions is that people are assuming more than I've asserted.
I'm not using this short period of data to claim that climate change has stopped or that the trend is likely to continue or that it is now cooling etc.
The ONLY assertion I've made is that the trend in the Global Temperature record over the last decade has been flat and thus the global temperature data doesn't support the claim that climate change is accelerating
You seem to be inferring because the warming trend is negated, that climate change is negated,
See what I mean?
That is not my position at all. Indeed I started out by saying that the last decade remained abnormally warm. That sustained level of warmth alone would continue to cause the Climate to change over time.
My point was quite a bit narrower than that (see above).
where as I am asserting that this isn't neccessarily the case, which I believe probably stems from a difference of opinion or understanding. You seem to be infering that rising temperatures are a cause of climate change, where as I infer them as being one of many symptoms.
Well I think my views coincide with the views of the IPCC.
As every cause of Climate Change is viewed as a level of Forcing and stated in relation to it's heating/cooling effect on the climate.
Clearly they believe it is these forcings that are driving Climate Change and they use the modeled future Global Surface temperature as the direct measure of the rate of change. Indeed, their forecasts outputs are presented in two key metrics: Rise of Surface Temperature over the next century and rise in sea level over the next century (with the rise in sea level directly attributed to the rise surface temperature and ocean heat content)
I think this may be one of the reasons for the change in language from global warming to climate change, because temperature is just one facet of climate.
It has never been called the International Panel on Global Warming.
And true, while temperature is just one facet of climate, according to the IPCC it is what is driving Climate Change.
I should also emphasize that I am not blaiming the apparnet lack of temperature rise exclusively on ENSO, there are other heat sinks as well - evaporation, and ice pack/ice cap melting are other heat sinks, and I'm sure there are a number of others I haven't covered.
There are no new heat sinks or significant changes in the existing ones and by far the largest one that does exist does not show any signs of acceleration.
Indeed, two recent reports based on tidal guages (US and Australia) suggest a slight deceleration in the rate of rise (with the peak rate in the 90s, which coincides with the recent peak rate of warming in the last century).
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/full/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-10-00141.1
Arthur