"It's the long term warming trend we need to worry about rather than one hot year," said Prof Piers Forster, at the University of Leeds in the UK.
And, I think you captured the essential issue: If people aren't aware of decadal fluctuations of this sort, then they may see a temporary interruption and say, "Aha, no global warming!" This way, it's crystal clear that even a decadal interruption is perfectly compatible with long term warming, and doesn't indicate low climate sensitivity.
While the long term warming trend is clear, scientists have long known that air temperatures do not rise smoothly year-on-year in the complex and chaotic climate system and that decade-long ups and downs are part of natural variability.
First: it shows a long term warming trend - and quite a dramatic one - beginning in the early 20th century and, evidently, still underway.
Microfossils document the biotic response of calcareous nannofossils and benthic foraminifera to short and long term warming trends of the early Eocene following the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).
This is needed also in the growing field of transplantation after circulatory death, where long-term warm ischemia may prevail [11].
Increased staining of collagen I in the compact myocardium of 19°C fish may be indicative of a remodeling of connective tissue with long-term warm acclimation.
The nitric oxide synthase (NOS) system is another important inter- and intracellular regulator of cardiac function and oxygen supply in fish [ 15], and in long-term warm acclimated eel (Anguilla anguilla) inhibition of NO production significantly reduced the Frank-Starling response [ 16].
But long-term warming can have micro results as well.
A long-term warming trend is perfectly consistent with short-term and isolated periods of cooler than normal weather.
As such cases are mostly in the earlier portions of the records, this will exaggerate the long-term warming trend.
