The above figure was presented in an article in the Economist titled

Climate changes

The implication clearly is that the observed rise in CO2 closely corresponds to the increase in global average surface temperature and ocean heat content. The ocean data is apparently from the Levitus et al 2012 paper that I posted on in

Comment On Ocean Heat Content “World Ocean Heat Content And Thermosteric Sea Level Change (0-2000), 1955-2010″ By Levitus Et Al 2012

The Levitus et al figure is reproduced below

I submited a comment to the Economist alerting them to my post but it was ignored. As I wrote in my post

Thus either using the 1955 to 2010 time period, or the shorter time period from 1990 to 2010 in the Levitus et al 2012 paper, the diagnosed magnitudes of ocean warming and global warming are significantly less than claimed by Jim Hansen in 2005. This discrepancy is even larger if we use the NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory data.

The Economist also ignored “inconvenient observations” which conflict with the steady rise that they present in their figure. Two examples (one for ocean heat content (NOAA) and for lower tropospheric temperatures (RSS)) are presented below.

Both of the above plots have clearly (using an eyecrometer) flattened in recent years.

If the Economist wants to report on global warming, if they want to be accurate, they also need to present data that shows a more complicated warming pattern than they present. In the upper ocean heat content analysis, heating continues but is muted. In the lower tropospheric temperature data, the temperature increases has stopped (perhaps due to the more frequent La Niñas has John Nielsen-Gammon has suggested in his post Lack of Warming: A Followup).