Many recent internet articles have referenced the Chen & Tung (2014) paper (about the possibility that the absorption of heat by the Atlantic Ocean, is primarily responsible for the global warming hiatus) while stating that the world should have about another 15-years of suppressed rates of global warming [see: Chen, X. & Tung, K.-K., (2014), "Varying planetary heat sink led to global-warming slowdown and acceleration", Science, Vol. 345, no. 6199, pp. 897-903, DOI: 10.1126/science.1254937]. This is premised on the assumptions that the AMO has about a 70-year period (so 35-year of heat and 35-years of cooling) and that the 35-year cooling period peaked in 2006, which could leave about 10-years of further cooling, assuming the AMO cycle is the dominate natural oscillation affecting mean global surface warming.
Nevertheless, many prominent scientists (who I agree with) indicate that they believe that the Chen & Tung (2014) conclusions are too simplistic, and that the larger story certainly includes interactions between the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Southern Oceans (not to mention aerosols, bio-cycles and numerous other feedback mechanisms). Indeed, the first linked internet article writes:
Extract: "There is some heat going into the Atlantic, writes Kevin Trenberth, a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, in an email. But Trenberth—who was not involved in the current study—disagrees with how it's getting there.
Trenberth argues that processes in the Pacific Ocean drive changes in the North Atlantic current. The same basic mechanism that may drive heat into the Pacific—intense trade winds that pile up warm water in the western Pacific—has large ripple effects on the atmosphere.
Those ripples influence jet streams, or currents of air flowing through the atmosphere, across the U.S., and over the North Atlantic Ocean. And those atmospheric currents can drive changes in ocean currents."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140821-global-warming-hiatus-climate-change-ocean-science/Also the second linked article writes:
Extract: "Richard Alley, a geoscientist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, says the study is interesting — “but whether it’s a completely different story or part of the same story is something I think is still coming out.”
Alley welcomes the focus on the Atlantic, however. “Those of us who work in palaeoclimate have for a very long time had an idea that the Atlantic matters,” he says. “The evidence from the ice ages is that there were huge North Atlantic changes that show up in climate records all over the world.”"
http://www.nature.com/news/atlantic-ocean-key-to-global-warming-pause-1.15755?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblrWhile Kim et al (2014) indicates that before 2040 CMIP5 models indicate that the amplitude of the ENSO phases will increase, indicating that when the El Nino events return for the next 25-years they are likely to be stronger than previously experienced leading to more abrupt climate change [see: Seon Tae Kim, Wenju Cai, Fei-Fei Jin, Agus Santoso, Lixin Wu, Eric Guilyardi & Soon-Il An, (2014), "Response of El Niño sea surface temperature variability to greenhouse warming", Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2326].
Furthermore, McGregor et al (2014) illustrate the interaction between the Pacific, and Atlantic, Oceans [see: McGregor, S., A. Timmermann, M. F. Stuecker, M. H. England, M. Merrifield, F.-F. Jin and Y. Chikamoto, (2014), "Recent Walker circulation strengthening and Pacific cooling amplified by Atlantic warming", Nature Climate Change; doi:10.1038/nclimate2330].
Also, Praetorius & Mix (2014) provide paleo-evidence of the importance of the synchronization of the North Pacific, and the North Atlantic, Oceans on Artic amplification: Summer K. Praetorius, Alan C. Mix, (2014), "Synchronization of North Pacific and Greenland climates preceded abrupt deglacial warming", Science 25 July 2014: Vol. 345 no. 6195 pp. 444-448 DOI: 10.1126/science.1252000
Also the importance of the Pacific Ocean is indicated in: Nicola Maher, Alexander Sen Gupta and Matthew H. England, (2014), "Drivers of decadal hiatus periods in the 20th and 21st Centuries", Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060527.
Also, for the important influence of the Indian see: Turney, C. S.M. and Jones, R. T. (2010), Does the Agulhas Current amplify global temperatures during super-interglacials?. J. Quaternary Sci., 25: 839–843. doi: 10.1002/jqs.1423.
Also, the importance of the surface melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet (see the attached figure of the extremely high recent GIS surface melting) is discussed in: Xu Zhang, Gerrit Lohmann, Gregor Knorr & Conor Purcell, (2014), "Abrupt glacial climate shifts controlled by ice sheet changes", Nature, doi:10.1038/nature13592.
In my opinion there are multiple masking factors contributing to the recent global warming hiatus, and that with strong anthropogenic radiative forcing, many of these masking factors will be gone in the next 10-years; which will reveal both a higher Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity, ECS, than 3 degrees C, and will cause a surge of mean global warming that will push many Earth Systems past tipping points that will accelerate long-term positive feedback factors such as accelerated: permafrost degradation, increase in NH albedo, and decreased absorption of heat by the ocean.