Seeing the environmental forest

The recent paper by Johnstone and Mantua ( 2014 ) has certainly made the rounds in conservative circles.  It's popped up several times on my Facebook feed as various friends and acquaintances share articles about it.  Unfortunately, most of those articles get it wrong, usually twisting Johnstone and Mantua's findings to imply that 80% of ALL global warming is natural.  As I explained in my last post , that is a blatant misinterpretation of their paper, which only applies to the northeastern Pacific and coastal regions of the US Pacific Northwest.  Globally, natural cycles do not explain the trend in global temperatures.  How can I say that?  Do the statistics.

One of the claims by climate skeptics is that global warming is due to natural cycles, most commonly the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).  The claim is that positive PDO phases lead to warming whereas negative PDO phases lead to cooling.  There are multiple problems with this claim, from ignoring how the PDO is calculated to ignoring the laws of physics.