Globally, 2009 fifth warmest year on record

[RedEarth]

The current cold weather gripping the UK does not undermine the fact the world is warming, experts said today.

Stephen Dorling, of the University of East Anglia's school of environmental sciences, said it was not surprising the cold period raised questions over climate change - but the snowy weather should not be used as evidence against it.

He said: "It's no surprise that people look out of their window at the snow and find it hard to rationalise what's going on with the longer term trend." But he said it was wrong to focus on single events - whether they were cold snaps or heat waves - which were the product of natural variability.


Instead they should look at the underlying, longer term trends for the climate which were more "robust" evidence of the changes which are happening. Dr Dorling said: "There is no doubt we will continue to have unusually warm and unusually cold Decembers and Januarys but it will be superimposed on what the background climate is doing."


While individual and short term weather events could make the situation look better or worse, the background issue of climate warming caused by greenhouse gases was not going away.


The last decade was the warmest on record, with the last three each warmer than the previous 10 years, he said.


And more warming is already built in because of delays in the system - making it imperative urgent action is taken to prevent temperature rises breaching thresholds where the more dangerous impacts of climate change could occur.


The Met Office's Barry Gromett said December and January's cold weather was "within the bounds of natural variability" within a global trend of rising temperatures - in which 2009 is set to be the fifth warmest year on record.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/no-conflict-between-big-freeze-and-climate-change-1858530.html

......and here is the Fixed News channel's take via MediaMatters....

Cavuto falsely claims, "It is freezing across the entire globe"
From the January 9 edition of Fox News' Cavuto on Business:

CAVUTO: All right. This is our Fox News global warming alert for you. It is freezing across the entire globe. We've got frost in Florida, it's 50 below in the Midwest. You got deadly snow in London. Beijing seeing it's coldest temperatures in 40 years -- Red Square more like "white square" -- the whole nine yards. When all of this is bad news for heating bills right now, but you say the record cold spell could save us money down the road? Ben, what's going on here?

STEIN: At some point maybe somebody in the government will wake up and say, "Hey, it's colder. It's not hotter." Maybe all this talk about global warming needs to be rethought.

Contrary to Cavuto's claim, many parts of globe experiencing temperatures "above normal"
Christian Science Monitor: "Look around and you'll find plenty of warm spots on the planet." In a January 7 blog post, The Christian Science Monitor noted that "ome parts of Northern New Zealand are sweltering in record breaking heat this week. And oddly enough, so are some places in Bulgaria, where a hot spot over the Black Sea has warmed one town to a pleasant 72 degrees. Not bad for a city at the same latitude as Portland, Maine." The Christian Science Monitor also noted, "On Christmas Day, the Australian Weather Bureau reported that Central Pacific Ocean temperatures are now at their warmest in more than a decade. For Australia itself, 2009 was a scorcher, the second hottest year on record after 2005."

http://mediamatters.org/research/201001100009

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. you may want to edit out the 's' in square brackets near the end of your post

it's starting a 'strike out' section of HTML that stretches to the end of the piece. (I normally change square brackets to round ones if I see them in a piece I post).

[RedEarth]

2. Thanks, however the two hour time-line to edit the post has passed....

the link to mediamatters still works, so if people can go to their site and read the rest of the post.