I think you may find the little graph I have just produced [above, and in full below] of interest. It illustrates an intriguing mini-phenomenon: since 1998, ‘global warming’ appears to have - wait for it - stopped. The data is taken from the UK Met Office’s ‘HadCRUT3’ dataset, a globally-gridded product of near-surface temperatures, consisting of annual differences from 1961-90 normals. The full data set is available here, covering the period from 1850 to the present. The coloured ribbon shows the best estimate data from this set. But, what does it mean?

Of course, little can be gleaned from such a short data run of only 10-years [“‘Global warmers’ also please note, thank you”], but the temperature anomaly has clearly dipped, and then flat-lined below its 1998 anomaly peak - and for nine years now. In other words, since 1998 there has been no global warming [not even any ‘global warming’]. Yet, atmospheric CO2 has continued to rise, from c. 368 ppmv in 1998 to c. 384 ppmv in November, 2007 [see: ‘CO2 Signals From The Past’, February 1]. Moreover, politicians persist in claiming that temperature is rising faster than at any other time in the history of the whole Earth..... but then, we always believe our politicians, don’t we?

So, does this mean to say that other factors may actually be driving climate and temperature? Oh me, Oh my! What a shock! Perhaps with all those shredders in our offices and homes, there are just too many tiny bits and bobs of credit cards floating up into the air and cooling the atmosphere? Or, weddings may have increased in number, and particulate confetti is having an unknown effect? Or, then again, the rise out of the ‘Little Ice Age’, which ended c. 1880, might just be stuttering a tad? Who knows?

Time to get my skates on. But, whatever it is - for the moment, at least - Global Warming Has Stopped!

Shout it from the rooftops, from your PCs, and from your Apple Macs.

Brrr! Time for a single malt to celebrate. “Slàinte!”