Nautilus: This unexpected shot of heat showed up in late 2013 as a discrete orange blob in satellite imagery, and by the end of last summer, sea surface temperatures as far north as the Gulf of Alaska were the highest ever recorded. So too was the global mean temperature for 2014. While it will take more time to see if the record represents the beginning of a renewed warming trend, Timmermann makes no bones about it--he believes that the blob has ended the hiatus.
The story of the blob starts with an unlikely...