IPCC climate scientist Ben Santer claims that 17 years is the proper benchmark to determine CO2's impact on global temperatures - indeed, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995
With climate scientist Peter Gleick's fraud reaching a crest in the headlines, it's time to revisit the climate "science" of the original Fakegate perp.
Ben Santer recently published research claiming that a 17-year span is the correct period to measure for CO2's influence on global temperatures. The adjacent chart plots the last 17 years through January 2012.
Since January 1995, the HadCRUT global temperature anomaly (the IPCC's gold standard) has declined from January 1995's +0.36° to January 2012's +0.22°. Simply put, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. And the linear trend over the past 17 years is a minor +0.6°C impact by 2100AD, if that trend were to continue.
But as the light blue polynomial curve indicates, global warming of the past (1980s and 1990s) has definitely gone AWOL, and appears to be moving in the direction of global cooling.
Conclusion: Human CO2 emissions have had little impact on global temperatures over the near past, which is why there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995.
Modern global, regional and historical temperature charts. HadCRUT global temperature data and CO2 data.