The year 1998 stands out at the hottest year on record, leading some to falsely conclude that temperatures have been dropping in the years since. However, as shown in Figure 2, despite some variance from year to year, the overall trend is positive – temperatures continue to rise not fall. To be precise since 1998 global warming has continued at a rate of 0.1oC per decade (UK Met Office 2008b).
Over the last 50 years the increase in warming was nearly twice the rate recorded over the last century, with 17 of past 20 years ranking as the hottest years since 1850 (UK Met Office 2008b).
The reason for 1998 recording such a high average global temperature is primarily due to the strong El Nino event that occurred in that year, which lead to a spike in global temperatures. Recent years have been cooler than the extremely hot year in 1998 but have still been warmer than historical averages. To say that this represents global cooling is like saying just because we have a cool summer day it is not summer any more.
Figure 2: This graph shows global average temperature anomaly from 1975–2007. The black line shows the annual figure. The red line shows the trend over the full 33 years. The blue lines show the varying rate of the trend over 10 year periods. (UK Metrological Office, 2008c)
UK Met Office (2008b), “Temperatures Continue to Rise”, online material: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/bigpicture/fact2.html
UK Meteorology Office (2008c), “Global warming goes on”, online material: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/news/warming_goes_on.html
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