Pirate's Cove

Reality, and science, is starting to roll in. As Europe is locked in a massive cold snap (oh, sorry, I forgot, cold is now caused by greenhouse gases), and America is seeing lots of early snowfall and cold temperatures, people are looking at the real data, and The Observatory provides this bit of knowledge

If the media headlines are to be believed 2010 is heading to be either the warmest or in the top three warmest years since the instrumental global temperature records began 150 years ago, and proof that the world is getting ever warmer. But looking more closely at the data reveals a different picture.

2010 will be remembered for just two warm months, attributable to the El Nino effect, with the rest of the year being nothing but average, or less than average temperature.

With November and December¹s data still to come in (that will account for 16% of the year¹s data) the UK Met Office estimates the temperature anomaly (with respect to the end of the 19th century) for 2010 so far as 0.756 deg C. As it has been cooling for the past 4 months we can expect that figure to decline below the 2005 0.747 deg C level and the El Nino influenced 1998 of 0.820 deg C.

2010 will therefore be no higher than the third warmest year, possibly lower.

March and June were much warmer than normal, thanks to a weak El Nino. FYI for all you alarmists, it’s a natural process. Then there is this

Actually, with the exception of 1998 – a ‘blip’ year when temperatures spiked because of a strong ‘El Nino’ effect (the cyclical warming of the southern Pacific that affects weather around the world) – the data on the Met Office’s and CRU’s own websites show that global temperatures have been flat, not for ten, but for the past 15 years.

They go up a bit, then down a bit, but those small rises and falls amount to less than their measuring system’s acknowledged margin of error. They have no statistical significance and reveal no evidence of any trend at all.

Reality’s a bitch.