Perhaps the most ridiculous graph in the IPCC AR5 SPM is this one showing “decadal mean” temperature.

A few points about this graph:

As far as I know, such a graph has not been used in any peer reviewed publication

The graph was not in the draft version of the SPM subjected to expert review

No such graph has been used in any of the previous IPCC reports.

I’m not aware of any such graph being used in any other field of science – any examples?

So why is the graph so bad? It’s hard to see why it is necessary to point this out. Firstly, it takes a graph with about 160 data points on it, and reduces this to just 16, effectively throwing away most of the data. Secondly, the appearance of the graph depends very much on how you choose to do the 10-year cuts. They seem to have chosen either 0-9 or 1-10 bins (it’s not clear which) so that the last two or three years aren’t included at all. But if we chose 5-4 bins, the picture would probably look quite different (has anybody done this?). The introduction of this graph into AR5, with no such graph in the previous reports, leaves the IPCC open to accusations of trying to “hide the decline” in warming this decade, though of course the levelling off is clear in the graph above, so the graph seems quite pointless.

In the draft version of the SPM reviewed by scientists, this graph was not there, perhaps because the authors were aware that it might be criticised. This illustrates the point about the authors having carte blanche to insert whatever they like into the final version after the review. The decadally averaged graph was there in the main section of the report, in chapter 2, Fig 2.20 (In the final draft version, it is Fig 2.19). In my review comments, I was very critical of this graph (“Fig 2.20 – I am surprised to see this absurd figure still in the SOD. No such figure appears in the cited paper Morice et al, or in any other published paper I am aware of , or in previous IPCC reports. Such a figure would be widely and rightly ridiculed as an attempt disguise the recent slow-down of warming.”)

The IPCC responded to my criticism by putting the graph in the SPM.

I have not seen much comment on this graph. But Reiner Grundmann tweeted “Summary for policymakers dodges issue of ‘pause’ in global warming. New fig.1 makes problem invisible” and “So SPM replaced the ‘dodgy sandwich’ graph with an ‘elevator’ graph of decadal temp rise. Good PR, but is it sustainable?” on the day the SPM was published.

This type of graph seems to have originated in a Met Office press release from 2009, although the IPCC version seems to be based on this one from 2012 from the EEA.

Update, October 2: Thanks to John Kennedy for pointing out that the decadal mean graph appeared in the 200+ page report, “State of the climate in 2009” (Fig 2.3).