Here's a pretty lengthy and interesting discussion on the "missing heat" issue, mainly concentrating on what goes on in the Pacific Ocean. You know, PDO, El Nino, etc.
It notes that there is a minority view that AGW might be driving the lengthy La Nina conditions which, if true, might provide a long term mechanism for some cooling. (It would mean models need adjusting down.) However, many modelling attempts apparently indicate the opposite, that longer term AGW will drive more El Nino's.
The article ends on this note:
Scientists may get to test their theories soon enough. At present, strong tropical trade winds are pushing ever more warm water westward towards Indonesia, fuelling storms such as November’s Typhoon Haiyan, and nudging up sea levels in the western Pacific; they are now roughly 20 centimetres higher than those in the eastern Pacific. Sooner or later, the trend will inevitably reverse. “You can’t keep piling up warm water in the western Pacific,” Trenberth says. “At some point, the water will get so high that it just sloshes back.” And when that happens, if scientists are on the right track, the missing heat will reappear and temperatures will spike once again.It sounds a bit peculiar, doesn't it, talking of the Pacific as if it is one dish of water that "shloshes" about from one side to the other.
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