World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.
Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

For some time, serious scientists have been reminding everyone that "Duh!" by far the biggest factor in the temperature on our planet was the sun, and the latest information seems to graphically bear that out.

Another warm year as Bali conference ends
13 December 2007

The Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia have today released preliminary global temperature figures for 2007, which show that the top 11 warmest years all occur in the last 13 years.

The provisional global figure, using data from January to November, currently places 2007 as the seventh warmest on record since 1850.

The announcement comes as the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, speaks at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Bali.

Scientists and politicians have been in Indonesia discussing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that have been linked to increasing global temperatures.

Dr Vicky Pope from the Met Office Hadley Centre, who has been attending the conference said, "The last few days have provided an important platform for debate and confirms the need for swift action to combat further rises in global temperatures because of human behaviour."

The last time annual mean global temperatures were below the 1961-1990 long-term average was in 1985. Since then, mean surface air temperatures have continued to demonstrate a warming trend around the world. 2007 has been no exception to this, even though there has been a La Niña event which usually reduces global temperatures.

Professor Phil Jones, Director of UEA's Climatic Research Unit, said, "The year began with a weak El Niño – the warmer relation of La Niña – and global temperatures well above the long-term average. However, since the end of April the La Niña event has taken some of the heat out of what could have been an even warmer year."

In January the Met Office, in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, predicted that 2007 could record global temperatures well above the long-term average. There was also a 60% probability that 2007 could be the warmest on record and the expected temperature for 2007 is within the range predicted.

Professor Jones said, "2007 was warmer in the Northern Hemisphere, where the year ranks second warmest, than the Southern Hemisphere, where it ranks ninth warmest."

Met Office Climate Scientist David Parker added, "This year has also seen sea-ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere below average in each month of 2007, with record minima sea-ice reported in July, August and September. In the Southern Hemisphere, sea-ice coverage has remained close to average."

Meanwhile, across the UK, 2007 is on course to become one of the warmest years on record. Even if the mean temperature for December is 1 °C below the 1971-2000 long-term average, the year will still be the third warmest since UK-wide records began in 1914. In this 94-year series, the last six years (2002-2007) are set to become the six warmest years.

Climate change myths
Prof. John Mitchell OBE FRS, Chief Scientist at the Met Office explores some of the common myths about climate change.

Myth 2 - Solar activity is the main driver of climate change

"The bottom line is that changes in solar activity do affect global temperatures. However, what research also shows is that increased greenhouse gas concentrations have a much greater effect than changes in the Sun’s energy over the last 50 years."

I'm not sure exactly where you got that information, but it seems to contradict what I found.




Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pres...pr20071213.html

Also:




Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pres...yths/index.html

watch this documentry and you will see that man made global is rubbish and we are being spoonfed lies ......great documentry though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo4R7yXz-90

If you watch that video you will notice that nobody denies that the climate is warming, the issue is whether or not it is man made.

That is the point I am working from.

Okay two things: first, if the Sun were involved in the heating of the Earth the other planets would be heating as well. Guess what? They aren't. Or rather, an equal number are heating and cooling.

Second, the claims of recent cooling are totally spurious. They come from this being a cold winter for pieces of the world. Global warming, overall, is a raising of the average temperature of the world. However, it might be better called climate CHANGE - it shifts weather patterns and the like, and while the average global temperature rises individual areas can have different shifts. There are also always going to be statistical hiccups in any data - and this happened to be a particularly cool JANUARY, not a YEAR like this article is claiming.