“…The recent divergence between the models and the observations occurs after 1998, the period commonly associated with the so‐called global warming “hiatus” [ Fyfe et al , ; Fyfe and Gillett , ; Tollefson , ]. Several contributory factors to the divergence have been identified, including an increase in moderate volcanic eruptions [ Solomon et al , ; Ridley et al , ; Santer et al , , ], a reduction in solar activity, a decrease in stratospheric water vapor concentration [ Solomon et al , ], internal variability [ Meehl et al , , ; Trenberth and Fasullo , ; Kosaka and Xie , ; Mann et al , ; Steinman et al , ; Dai et al , ], and a bias due to the omission of the Arctic, which is warming more rapidly than projected by the models [ Cowtan and Way , ; Saffioti et al , ]. The contribution of internal variability to the remaining discrepancy between the models and the observations is beyond the scope of this analysis.…”